Little Glass Slippers
by Tess 4 5
Summary: They had just returned from a tough case and were sent to Rome immediately after. Barbara was angry with Tommy though it was not his fault she had to come with him and she decided to use the police laptop for her personal distraction. (This is M-rated for reasons. If you don't like that don't read it. If you read it anyway don't blame me.) FINISHED!
1. Sheffield - Rome

**Usual notes and disclaimer:** I don't own any of the original characters nor the original Inspector Lynley Mysteries – they belong to Elizabeth George and the BBC. I have borrowed the characters from the TV-Show and solely own the ideas of _my _stories and the developments _I've_ let them go through.

Please let me know if I did something terribly wrong (rating, grammar, spelling...). Thanks!

Please read and review!

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><p><strong>Author's note: <strong>After a little break I'm back. Here's another so called story which I first intended to write as a 299-words-story but then... This is a twin-story, of which more later. This whole thing is not yet totally finished, I still struggle with the end.

**Warning/Spoiler:** Don't take this story too serious but also do not forget to always be in private and in a balanced mood when you read M-rated stories! ;-)

**This is M-rated for reasons. If you don't like that don't read it. If you read it anyway don't blame me.**

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><p><strong>Summary:<strong> They had just returned from a tough case and were sent to Rome immediately after. Barbara was angry with Tommy though it was not his fault she had to come with him and she decided to use the police laptop for her personal distraction.

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><p><strong>Wiki says:<strong> Cinderella, one whose attributes were unrecognized, or one who unexpectedly achieves recognition or success after a period of obscurity and neglect.

**Author says:** Therese, not only a nun's name ;-)

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><p><strong>.<strong>

**Sheffield - Rome**

**.**

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><p>It had been a really tough case near Sheffield. The local CID had some references to a series of events in London so DI Lynley and DS Havers had joined them. What should have been a two days appointment had turned into a one week nightmare with rain, mud, cold, three more bodies, two badly injured Constables, a fatally shot bloodhound and turns of events that drove them all mad, gave them not a minute's rest, woke them too often in the night and left them all horribly tired.<p>

In the end Havers and Lynley had been arguing about everything and nothing until they finally had nothing more to say to each other, or better they had _decided_ to say only the bare necessities to each other, though everybody thought they should clear out their divergencies soon and comprehensive. But both just wanted to get back home and have a quiet weekend without talking, without listening, without questions and also without answers and without each other. The tension between them had turned really unbearable for those around them.

Now the two metropolitans were on their way back to London. Havers had driven the first half and now, with Lynley at the steering wheel, she was sleeping the sleep of the just with her head on the window pane of his classic car.

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><p>His mobile buzzed.<p>

"Lynley."

"Sir? Nkata here. We have a problem."

Lynley sighed. "What is it now?"

DC Winston Nkata filled him in on the latest news of a case that seemed to be closed a few years ago. Lynley had been suspected of killing the woman and he dearly hoped all this would stay in the past. But there was no way out. It all came back with the voice of Nkata telling him some new aspects and complications. Hillier wanted Lynley to fly to Rome to get some things sorted with a relative of the victim from a year ago, find out more about another event and assist the local _commissario_.

"Sir, Hillier made it an urgency and... um... can you speak, Sir, or is Havers listening?"

"Looks like she's fast asleep. Are you awake, Cinderella?" He heard a snorting laughter from the other side of the line. "Shut up, Constable, I just tried something funny to know that she _really_ is asleep and not just pretending. It's... umm... quite edgy at the moment. I assume she's to be coming with me?"

"Who?"

Lynley was slightly angry about the dumbness of his Constable. "Who do you think I'm talking of? Cinderella?"

Now he had to snicker himself.

"Well, _you_ called her so, Sir. Then, yes, if you mean _your_ Cinderella who's just sleeping in your passenger seat-"

"Yes, I'm talking about my Cinderel- oh, no, Winston, cut it out! Yes, sure I mean her. Now stop being cheeky and give me more information about that bloody flight."

"I've tried to convince Hillier that I could use some mediterranean sun to intensify my tan. But no chance. He said you should be accompanied by your usual partner."

"She'd be enormously happy." Lynley sighed. "Now, come to the point. The flight?"

Nkata briefed him a bit more and later sent a text with the rest of the details and their flight numbers.

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><p>Lynley drove around London to get directly to the airport. Unfortunately Hillier had wanted them to fly this evening and the booked flight was too soon to stop over at their homes to shower or collect a few more, that is to say a few fresh clothes, clothes who would be more suitable for mediterranean warmth. But their little suitcases packed for three rainy nights in the middle of England had to be enough. The Hotel in Rome will have to clean their stuff once they get there and hopefully they would have some spare time to go shopping on their day of arrival.<p>

Barbara woke to the sound of a full fire brigade howling past them.

"Oooh... Mmmm... Where are we, Sir?" she sleepily asked.

Lynley shot a side glance at her and thought that her cute sleepy appearance soon will turn into anger when he would have told her where they were heading.

"Morning, Havers." he tried to joke.

She snorted disparagingly. It was dark outside and they had just passed a sign saying Heathrow. She knew that this was not the way to her home.

"Sir?" she asked, her voice dripping with premonition.

Hesitantly Lynley started to tell her of the call from Nkata and that there was an old case to be handled again.

"You know of that case. This... when I ... errm... had been in Italy..."

"You mean, that case where you behaved like a bloody idiot and nearly... fucked up the whole affair?" Barbara knew very well of that case.

"Exactly this." Lynley sighed. This would not be going easy. "Hillier said something about a loose end in the files that needed to be cleared out in Rome and he ordered me there."

"And I am allowed to drive your precious car back home from the airport?" Havers looked quite amazed. "I can't believe the honour..."

"No." This was _absolutely_ not easy. Lynley deeply inhaled. "Hillier ordered you too."

"To Rome?" Her voice was icy cold now and Lynley only dared to nod before she exploded.

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><p>They parked the car, checked in and were the last who entered the plane. She had not said a word after she finished her explosion how daft and dorky all this was and she even did not let him help her on with her coat or let him carry her suitcase though it was not very easy to handle all her stuff and the cigarette she had lit in the instant she got out of the car.<p>

"Don't wake me 'til Frankfurt." she grunted and turned her head away but angry like she was she knew she would not be going to sleep the whole flight. _As if he was responsible. Well, anyway..._

_This trip will be hell._ he thought while he sipped at his water. _I have to be very careful with that little volcano during our stay in Rome._ Then he closed his eyes and leaned back. He did not find sleep either.

In Frankfurt they had a stop over. The money of his Lordship made it possible to spend the two hours in the first class airport lounge. Havers usually would have left a comment on that but she was too fuming and admittedly too tired and angry about the fact that she was not allowed to smoke there. The nearest smoking area would be somewhere on the other side of this building, out on the balcony without a canopy. It was raining cats and dogs. This was definitely not lightening up her mood. She decided to take the well needed shower and then opened the laptop she had with her and which was only supposed to be worked with. Fortunately it has a browser and fortunately the lounge provided free WiFi.

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><p>She gave a damn about that thing being for working purpose only, ignored Lynley's raised eyebrow and continued to read. Lately she had discovered an internet community where people wrote stories about TV shows or books or films. They created new scenes, filled in gaps or what you did not see on screen or finished stories that were cut leaving the audience in the lurch.<p>

_Unleash your imagination_, the page said, and unleashed fantasies were what she liked to read from time to time. There were case fics, philosophical stories, dramas and so on and some of the stories she had read were highly erotic, something she especially liked to read in the late night hours when she was alone at home. And her own imagination sometimes had replaced some figures with her own and one certain man she knew, especially those stories about William 'Liam' MacKenzie, an unbelievably rich inspector, policing for interest and fun, and Therese Gibson, his female working class sidekick, the whole thing being a TV show on AAB. The two protagonists had gone through many years together, always close, always close to being closer but never taking that last step. Sometimes she thought they must have peeped into their lifes and transformed it onto screen. Barbara looked up at her DI, then she shook her head.

_No, too stiff for MacKenzie._

Unfortunately the AAB had cancelled the series and left the frustrated audience to their own imaginations on this platform where the DI and his DS mostly got romantically involved. To her special delight the community around this story was very lively and three or four authors provided her nearly daily with a new story or a new chapter.

She opened that site and continued with the story that had distracted her last night. The author had posted a new chapter of a bundle of independent stories named 'Get together, for heaven's sake - short stories with just one destination'.

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><p><strong>.<strong>

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><p><strong>...<strong>


	2. Dance

**Author's note: **As I said before, this is a twin story. This chapter starts with one of those Rese and Liam stories (_italic_) but if you prefer to read the (considerably longer) Barbara and Tommy twin story from where it originated just hop over to "Get together", read it there and then continue here. First I had whole little stories inserted here but then I decided on more summarised versions and just a few essential quotes. The **X** marks the spot: **(X+)** means start, **(+X)** means end.

Ah, and don't forget that we **all **have our little **fun** on fan**fiction**.

BTW the idea to this FF-related thing came with a _certain review_ and the following mail-chat. Thanks for the inspiration!

I'm still giggling because of your reviews to chapter one. A heartfelt ROFLMAO in return! :-D

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><p><strong>.<strong>

**Dance **(Rese and Liam I, 290)

**.**

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><p><strong>(X+)<strong>

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><p><em>The two detectives had a hard day. In the evening they bought some take away food and went to his house where they discussed and talked the whole evening.<br>_

_"I'm so exhausted." Her voice was choked with tears again._

_"Yah, rough day today." He sighed._

_"Not only today. The last year in general." She closed her eyes. _

_He got up an moved around his desk to ask her for this dance.  
><em>

_"What?!" Startled she looked up to him. "Oh, get off, Liam, I don't dance."_

_In the end she _was softly swaying in his arms.

_"Therese..." His whisper trickled into her ear. "Please stop crying." _

_His lips brushed her ear barely noticable which sent a shiver down her spine. Simultaneously they began to kiss the skin closest to their lips. While he whispered meaningless sounds onto her earlobe she breathed kisses onto his stubbly jaw until they reached the corners of their mouths. Their lips met for the first time and her heart missed a beat._

_Some involuntarily steps later her legs met the sofa.  
><em>

_"Liam..." Her whisper was uncertain and still full of anticipation._

_ His raspy voice was very certain and full of want. _"Lie down, Rese."_  
><em>

_She laid down on his sofa feeling the pressure of his groin following her flush. Fears, objections, restraints, problems and all other reasonable thoughts were banned. Tonight they just wanted to be just a woman and a man.  
><em>

_Silently and slowly they undressed, kissed and caressed every square inch of each other's body until they silently and slowly made love on the soft leather sofa in his study. Finally they cried out each other's name and slowly they slipped off to sleep under a soft and warm blanket.  
><em>

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><p><strong>(+X)<strong>

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><p>Barbara left a comment saying "<em>wow, not the chapter to read in a public airline lounge! I just had a shower, it will look funny going back for a second" <em>And yes, she definitely needed a second cold shower now. Her whole body seemed to be blushed. She got up and hurried back to the washing room to at least splash some cold water in her face. Lynley's eyes that had watched her for a long time, knowing she was absorbed in whatever she was reading, followed her with raised eyebrows.

He peeped onto the screen to learn what she had been reading but there was nothing but the frontpage. Even the back button did not work. So he remembered his good manners, scolded himself for being nosy and closed the laptop just in time when Havers came back.

He then told her that he had upgraded their next flight so they could take a more comfortable nap until they would arrive in Rome in the morning. He also told her that he also had cancelled the Hotel the Met had booked for them and that they now will share a suite in a better hotel.

"I'm so sick of your money, Sir." she snorted. Havers was back in her grumpy mode and would snap at everything he said or did so Lynley better kept quiet.

Barbara also had recognised that the laptop now was fully closed and she knew _for sure_ she had left it half open when she rushed away.

_Sneaky bloke!_

She held on to the deafening silence for the rest of the journey.

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><p>Arriving in Rome in the very early morning hours they drove to the hotel in total silence. Both were still tired but Barbara also still was brooding over her anger. She was angry with the whole situation. Being close to him for some more days and - what a horror, she thought - <em>nights<em>, having to get her simple clothes washed by the staff of that fancy hotel, probably needing to buy some new clothes that suits the hot weather here, being so close to him - _oh, I've already mentioned that. I really can't bear him any longer. He's so... unaware of what he does to me. I simply can't be around him any longer. Every look he honors me with makes me melt, every word he says makes me shiv- oh no, stop it now, Barb. You know it's futile. His constant arguments prove that very clearly.  
><em>

They drove up at the Hotel, arranged that the majority of their clothes would be collected to be cleaned during the day, settled in their suite and would meet for breakfast in a few hours. After that they met with commissario Montani. The first day went by without further arguments between Havers and Lynley but it was icy cold and even got worse when it came to the affairs of 'that woman', like Barbara referred to her. She still objected to calling her by her name. The whole situation was stressed and tensed and the commissario made a good choice by not interviewing them about their former working relationship or their last case. Work here in Italy seemed to be quite easy but that might be owed to the circumstance that the re-opened files, or the new issues related to it, that is, were not urgent enough. Hillier and the commissario's gov though obviously had been of a different opinion.

Clocking off was shortly before four and after a short roundtrip in Rome - spent in silence but Lynley had insisted on it (and paid) - and an early but equally silent dinner at around seven they went to their suite, being appointed for breakfast the other day.

Barbara carelessly threw her jumper over the backrest of an armchair. She had not needed it the whole day since it was warm enough for a blouse . Her usual oversized handbag ended on the floor somewhere between that armchair and her door where she unceremoniously slipped off her shoes and left them there jumbled. Without looking back and without a good wish she slammed her door shut.

_Not exactly little glass slippers..._ Lynley thought watching her boots, fit for the muddy woods near Sheffield.

_Oh well! Cinderella... _Shaking his head and with a little smile he closed his door. _What shall I do with you?_

He dearly hoped that Barbara's mood would lighten throughout their stay in Rome, la dolce vita around here should rub off on her at least a tiny little bit. It would make work much easier.

An uneventful night full of really earned proper sleep followed.

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><p>The next morning Barbara was first and she had finished breakfast and a cigarette before he even arrived downstairs. Interestingly enough she had not been able to sleep anymore so she had gotten up early. Now she sat in a lounge chair near the entrance of the breakfast room and had opened the laptop again. Those stories were too addictive and she had nothing particular to do anyway at the moment. Her favourite author had published two new chapters about the two detectives making confessions and having a luxurious picnic.<p>

Barbara clicked on the story.

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><p><strong>.<strong>

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><p><strong>...<strong>

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><p><strong>Author's notes: <strong>Reviews and suggestions are very welcome. Especially on the topic of this twin-story thingy. Does it work?


	3. Picnic

**Author's note: **Haha, yes, I've found a little town on the map south of Edinburgh called Stow. That's where I located the birthplace of Liam. *giggles*

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><p><strong>.<strong>

**Picnic **(Rese and Liam II, 599)

**.**

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><p><strong>(X+)<strong>

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><p><em>He had confessed his love for her via telephone. When MacKenzie had been at his mother's house near Stow to handle some family business his mother finally had had enough of his absent mind and sent him to his room to have a little thought on it.<em>

_"Oh, and Liam - call her!" she had advised him. And so he had called her._

_"Gibson."_

_"Therese, hello. I..." he had paused._

_"Sir?"_

_"This might be somewhat out of the blue, but I've been thinking..."_

_"Oh, nice experience, huh?"_

_"Oh, crap... I tell you now something you need to think about too before you answer."_

_"Umm... yah?"_

_"I expect you to dinner on Friday at seven at my mother's house, stay for the weekend, if you agree." He took a deep breath. "Therese, I love you!" With that he hung up. It had been childish, he knew, but like a teenager he had feared a negative answer._

_This had been three days ago. After a long internal debate__ she had finally packed her things for a weekend stay and had driven south._

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><p><em>They were alone in the huge house and after her arrival he had let her into the garden where he had prepared a picnic and she confessed she loved him too. Then they kissed.<em>

_After a while they parted slightly breathless._

_"Wonderful." he sighed._

_The picnic was a luxurious feast in four courses _during which they talked about everything and especially how both had found out about their feelings_. They had cheese and coffee as their last course.  
><em>

_Somehow their serious talk had turned into lascivious banter and this ended with both lying naked on the grass, kissing passionately._

_"I want to make love to you under the stars, Rese. I want to love you until the morning light shines through the trees. I want to hold you the entire weekend."_

_"Sir, we..."_

_"...are far from the point where you should still call me Sir."_

_"Liam." she tasted his name on her tongue. "Liam." she breathed again, feeling his lips caressing her breast._

_"God, _Liam_!" she sucked in some air when his lips had finished their travel downwards._

_While he knelt between her legs he breathed sweet words across her curls._

_"Liam!" she whispered slightly shocked._

_"I love you, Therese."_

_He kissed across her belly, her breast, through the hollow of her neck, up her chin and into her mouth. Their eyes were locked when he searched for her hand to hold it. Their eyes kept locked when she slightly changed her position underneath him. Their locked eyes finally widened._

_The cold grass in her back kept her from melting away in the heat their bodies radiated. It did not take long until Therese lost track of her breathing. She had closed her eyes and tilted her head back, savouring the warm feeling, hearing herself suddenly moaning with delight. Seeing her so delighted brought him to the edge. He knew she was more than ready to tumble into the abyss with him. He lowered his chest and kissed her throat._

_"Look at me!" he rasped and Therese opened her eyes. _Their eyes locked again._  
><em>

_"Let's fall!" he demanded hoarsely and Therese nodded._

_All restraints were dismissed and they finally reached the bottom of pleasure. The impact left them both shattered and satisfied._

_"Oh, wow..." she whispered while he rolled them to the side, getting off from her so she would not be smashed by him._

_"Yes, wow..." he answered grinning contentedly, giving her a tender kiss and tucking a sweaty strand of hair behind her ear._

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><p><strong>(+X)<strong>

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><p>Barbara had finished this very hot chapter and left a comment saying <em>what a wonderful romantic scene, this delicious picnic in the garden! So much to feast on ;-)<em> Then she had just clicked on the next chapter to slowly cool off a bit when Tommy startled her by joyfully wishing her a good morning. Barbara turned as red as a beetroot, slammed the laptop shut and laughed nervously.

"Ah, hi, Sir, umm, sorry, good morning." She recognised that her voice was too loud when she greeted him. She involuntarily scratched behind her ear. "I kind of... it was... well... whatever." Barbara dismissed this non-sentence with a shake of her head. She looked everywhere else but at him. _As if he could know what I've just read. Stupid girl._ "Aahm... Shall we go or have you not yet finished breakfast?" She laughed again too loud. _This is awkward. _she thought._  
><em>

Tommy eyed her carefully. "Are you ok, Barbara?" He thought she was acting very strange.

"Oh, well..." she harrumphed. "Yes, yes, just... haha... umm..."

"Just what? You're glowing. Still tired, are you?" His voice showed his concern very clearly.

"No, umm, yes, well, maybe a little feverish, Sir. Or just... ah, sleepy? Anyway. Will be gone soon. Just have wondered where you are when you scared the hell out of me. Hahaha." Barbara wished for a whole in the ground to disappear in.

"Alright then..." Tommy was not convinced. "I've had breakfast in the suite. Shall we meet with the commissario now?"

Barbara jumped up. "Yah."

Tommy hesitated. "What? No handbag today?" _She always has her big bag with her. A little distracted today, are we, Miss Havers? _He chuckled and watched her hurrying away.

_Bullshit._ Barbara inwardly cursed. She forgot it upstairs. _How unusual._ She hurried upstairs.

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><p>Tommy could not resist to give in to his curiousity again. Barbara's actions after he had startled her from her concentration to the laptop had been too strange. She obviously had been reading again and very concentrated by the way. He opened the computer and skimmed the first lines of the story that was still open. Recognising it was a story of two people in the middle of <em>something<em>, or rather at the beginning of something new and it was not scrolled down and still at the start of the page he turned one page back to see what she _had_ _read_ and first saw the author's note: _'This really is M-rated. Be warned of my smutty mind_'.

_Oh, wow. What the heck is she reading?_

He skimmed the text and blushed. This really was unexpected. Sweet, a little funny, much more lovingly and tender, extraordinary romantic - and unexpectedly erotic! He never would have thought that his little shy Sergeant Havers, his sweet innocent Barbara would read something like this.

_Cinderella is not so innocent at all._ A smug smile stole itself onto his face, being replaced immediately by a stern mask. He should not spy into his sergeant's privacy that way and not at all make any judgement about that at all. _Manners, Lynley!_

But certainly he would have to read more on this internet site when he was alone tonight. Maybe he could learn more about the hidden side of this woman that used to snarl at him and push every emotionality away, who wiped any tenderness off from her face to appear strong or whatever she intended to achieve with her harshness she always masked herself with. Once again Tommy wished she would relax more and reveal to him some sort of female vulnerability instead of her usual tiger claws. She did not need to face all rigours by herself. She could let _someone_ protect her from time to time. _She's not alone._ Pensively looking at the laptop he knew that a huge, important part of her obviously was _horribly_ alone. Suddenly the hint of an idea flashed through the back of his mind that, despite all its faintness, made him blush and stop breathing for a split second. _Honestly, Tommy!_

He closed that thing just in time. She need not know that he had spied on her. Now it was his turn to blush.

He eyed her very close when she came down again. She looked normal like always. _Cooled off, eh?_ he thought, feeling a little smug smile returning into his face.

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><p>This second day in Rome went by as easy as the first but luckily without Barbara entirely fuming. She really <em>had<em> cooled off. They had spent their time with commissario Montani talking about some relationships between suspects and witnesses and additional family members. Boring and without any lead or hint of some.**  
><strong>

After lunch Barbara decided she needed some new clothes.

"You have to admit, Sir, that those warm clothes do not fit into this hot mediterranean weather."

"I agree, Barbara. Care if I join you?" Tommy smiled. "I could prevent you from smoking too much." His teasing grin widened.

"Sir, with all due respect, but I'm not going shopping with you at my heels." Barbara retorted and demonstratively lit a cigerette.

Tommy made a face.

"And besides you would do good when you'd go shop some lighter cloth yourself."

_Well that's a point._ He thought. Though he really would have appreciated it to watch her shop, see what she would choose, what she would dismiss, how she would ask for his opinion, how she would parade in front of him with a new pair of casual slacks.

_Really, old boy, you are delirious._

Tommy shook his head and wished her some fun, knowing full well that she was going to stress her bank account once more even if she would stay reasonable. He made a mental note to check how far he could stretch the possibilities on the bill of costs for their constant traveling. This would be something Barbara would accept.

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><p>While Tommy knew where he would find his menswear shops to get him a light suit Barbara first browsed the internet in search of some cheaper department store chains.<p>

There she chose some knee length shorts that had been marked down, some soft thin slacks in a light greenish colour and a compatible white blouse with short sleeves, as well as a shiny burgundy red top with narrow straps. She also had found a pair of shoes more suitable for the actual weather than those boots in which she had come here. Almost out of the shop she saw some nice huge but feathery thin scarves on a bargain table so she ignored her good resolutions and bought one that fitted her new clothes.

_It's goin' to be fresh in the evening!_ she reassured herself.

Loaded with shopping bags, well, for her usual shopping behaviour it was a huge amount of stuff for one day, she arrived back in their suite.

Tommy raised an eyebrow.

"I understand that you've had your fun?" he teased her. "Nice outfit."

Barbara blushed and vanished in her room. _I shouldn't have combined the shortest things._

A little later she reappeared in the living area, now wearing the longer pants and the blouse. Tommy was languidly browsing through some magazines. He wore the thin blue jeans and a tght fitting new T-shirt he had bought some hours ago. He did not intend to do more work at the office today. The fact that Montani had some personal affairs to run had made the decision easy. And maybe he could have another nice dinner with Barbara.

But first he needed to talk about something he had found in one of the files. Business before pleasure.

While Barbara plonked onto the sofa he got up and organised some cold drinks. She leaned against the armrest and leasurely crossed her legs on the cushions in front of her. Without any shame she ignored the no smoking sign and lit a cigarette. Tommy opened the windows without a word but with a very raised eyebrow. He shook his head.

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><p>Soon they were in an intense debate about those informations Tommy had needed to talk about. It was nothing overly important but left too many options how to go on with it. Still Barbara was not at all convinced this journey would lead them anywhere. Additional to the fact that this loose end in the case was all but important or interesting or in any way crucial for the case itself. This journey to Rome was absolutely superfluous.<p>

When Lynley soliloquised about this and that or the other and something new, Barbara's mind wandered somewhere else. She was tired from the shopping tour and the previous week in general and just listened to his deep voice, just let it vibrate through her auditory canals, just watched his intense dark eyes piercing into her when he tried to emphasise something she would not object anyway (for she absolutely had not listened anyway).

Slenderly he perched on the drawer cabinet next to the fridge. He had his legs crossed and his arms crossed in front of his chest. He only waved one or the other arm through the air to emphasise something important, thus letting his muscles, still in good shape for his age, Barbara thought, play a bit under the short sleeves of his really tight fitting white T-shirt. She recognised that his belly was not the belly of a twentysomething and was a little protuberant. His waist was not so slim anymore like it used to be when they firt had met nine years ago but it still was a lovely sight - and how she wanted to have a look at his bottom since the front was that promising. His legs were put in a blue jeans, something she seldomly had seen on Tommy. All in all a sight for sore eyes. She did not even heard what he had asked her. She did not even recognise how, let's say, involuntarily lascivious she took a pull on her cigarette.

_Must have been something unbelievable, the way he shakes his head, lets his hair flow. Oh, I love it being a little longer. Something to rummage through, to dig my fingers - gods, Barb, get a grip!_

"Barbara?" he addressed her. "At what point did you stop listening?"

"Huh?" she blushed a little.

"You are sizing me up!" Tommy chuckled. _Honestly! She truly does!_

"I'm not!" Barbara blushed even deeper and diverted her eyes to something very interesting on the curtains at the window. Absentminded she stubbed out her cigarette on a saucer.

"You like the view?" he asked with a cheeky grin and leaned forward, his arms still crossed in front of his chest. Playfully he made a show of tensing his arm-muscles. "And I don't mean the view out of the window."

Though nearly impossible Barbara blushed even more but looked back at him, now openly eyeing him from top to toe and back. Then she nodded appreciative and deep red. "Well, for an old Earl you're still in quite good shape, Sir."

Tommy had to laugh out loud. _She's in a very good mood today._ "Thank you very much, ma'am."

Unfortunately his mobile buzzed and put an end to this sizzling situation. He would have loved to go on with this flirtatious banter but Signore Montani called and invited them for dinner.

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><p><strong>.<strong>

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><p><strong>...<strong>


	4. Drawer Cabinet

**Author's note: **Thanks for your reviews. I'm glad to hear that it obviously works.

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><p><strong>.<strong>

**Drawer cabinet **(Rese and Liam III, 597)_  
><em>

**.**

* * *

><p>In the evening they were invited for dinner by commissario Montani and his wife instead of going out alone. Barbara had thought this would get boring but it went by too quick and very much at ease. Barbara appeared to be wrapped by the lightheartedness of the commissario's wife and she truly relaxed. Maybe it was the effect of the red wine but she even bantered with Tommy like she had not for quite some time. He also saw her blushing and shyly smiling when Signora Montani winked at her as a comment on something slightly suggestive her husband had said to his wife, kissing her hand.<p>

_And was that indeed a giggle? _Tommy thought._ She _can_ be sweet sometimes.  
><em>

Returning to their suite Barbara immediately discarded her shoes, dropped her handbag and excused herself to her room. This evening she felt too...

_Bloody. I feel frustratingly energised. And I should stop reading those stories while I'm with the DI on a foreign assignment. This is _no_ good. I really should stop or I'll jump at him at the first available chance that comes along._ Barbara clearly remembered how she had stared at him this afternoon when she better had listened to what he had said._  
><em>

Despite her good resolutions she took the laptop with her when she went to bed. Fortunately, or rather _un_fortunately, this community was quite productive recently and someone had published a sweet little _innocent_ short story inbetween the postings of the hot series. Unfortunately this certain author with a smutty mind also seemed to torture her with another chapter of the hotter story. She opened the beer she had taken from the fridge in the main room and crawled under the sheets.

* * *

><p>In the other room Tommy went to bed quite similar except that he drank a whisky.<p>

He booted up his own personal netbook and started reading this hot story. He knew of this former TV-show on AAB and always had wondered if the writers probably had a glimpse into their lives. The similarities were quite obvious. Even the distance they kept was equal. He sometimes had thought of Barbara as an attractive woman but too far out of reach. As easy as he would throw all concerns about their social differences over board as relentless Barbara was with sticking to her own class.

Tommy sighed. During the last awful case near Sheffield there had been more than one moment when he just had wanted to take her in his arms just to soothe her as a friend, as a good friend of course, or maybe even more he had to admit himself, but she harshly even had closed out _this_, always had answered fiercely and seemingly had searched for every little reason to start an argument.

_ Maybe I did not appear to her as a friend or close colleague, maybe I'm just the stiff guv to her? Or maybe I'm frightening her? Maybe I've looked _too_ ... what is it? Lovingly? Fond? Caring? Oh, for heaven's sake, it seems I have feelings for my sergeant._

Tommy chuckled slightly until he realised he truly _had_ those feelings. _Can I trust me? Or do I simply feel challenged? Do I want once again something I'd never get?_

He shook his head to get rid of those heavy thoughts. They were futile anyway, since his feelings obviously were single-sided. He concentrated on the electronic device on his duvet. He was holding his netbook for a certain purpose. He wanted to know what she was reading all the time. So he opened the browser.

The first chapter was sweet. This Liam brought her some scones in the morning, they acted around each other like they were a couple for years, he still held the door open for her and she blessed him with sweet smiles and even let him help her down some slippery stairs. Then the Therese in that story came with a mug of tea into his office where they, in the second chapter, soon argued once more like Havers and Lynley had in Sheffield.

Lynley chuckled reading of this fight and how it went on and briefly thought how it would have been when he had had the guts to act like William MacKenzie and just - _what? kiss her? Honestly, old boy..._

He shook his head and continued reading this second chapter.

* * *

><p><strong>(X+)<strong>

* * *

><p><em>He shouted that she would be a stubborn thorn in his investigations and she answered that exactly this would be her job. Then they both confessed that they hated those arguments. Standing in the middle of his office they finally realised that there was more than just a working relationship between them.<em>

_"Therese?" He took a deep breath.  
><em>

_"Sir?" She swallowed.  
><em>

_"I love you."_

_"You don't."_

_"Let me kiss you."_

_"Hell, this frightens me."_

_"Let me catch you, Therese."_

_"Nothing I'd like more, Liam!"_

_His lips came down to hers and they shared a sweet sensual kiss that developed into an encounter that left them both breathless._

* * *

><p><em>Later that day they had some trouble with a suspect and then suddenly he left her alone there and did not return, not even in the evening, so she also had to do all the paperwork. <em>

_Therese was fuming. _Oh, he will so bloody pay for this.

* * *

><p><strong>(+X)<strong>

* * *

><p><em>Oh yes, let him pay for it... <em>She thought.

Barbara smugly smiled and commented:_ hot indeed, I'm running out of ice - look forward to the next chapter, this is going to be an even hotter one I suppose  
><em>

She clicked on "Next".

* * *

><p><strong>(X+)<br>**

* * *

><p><em>The next morning an enormous bouquet of roses stood on her desk with a card saying "<em>Sorry for leaving you alone but I'm sure you've kept things firmly in hands. Today dinner at 8. Dress nicely. I'll pick you up. Lx"_  
><em>

_The whole office was whispering and getting quiet when she came near._

_As soon as possible she fled the premises. Now he not only had to pay for the previous afternoon, he also had to pay for writing such personal things in a card everybody would have access to._

* * *

><p><em> She simply nodded at his housemaid in the door, stormed through the corridor and invaded his office.<em>

_"What the-?!"_

_"You!" she growled._

_She railed against him until he silently interrupted her cascade.  
><em>

_"Rese!?"  
><em>

_"What?"_

_"Shut up!" Then he kissed her firmly._

_When he let her go she clouted him. The loud smack into his face left a distinct red mark.  
><em>

_"Oh, god, sorry, Sir, I..."_

_"Therese, _I'm_ sorry." He was still smiling.  
><em>

_"No, you..."_

_"I should've done all this a long time ago."_

_With that he embraced her. The following kiss was everything but onesided. They bumped into the drawer cabinet when they lost balance. Everything became intense. They kissed passionately and quickly undressed.  
><em>

__"You know what we're doing?" _Liam gnawed gently at her throat and she moaned._

_"Hell, yes! Go on! Before I come to my senses."_

_"You never will..."_

_Liam's tongue slipped between her lips again. Their hips rolled. Therese leaned back and had to support herself on the top of the cabinet._

_"God, Liam, we couldn't... here..." she panted._

_Liam growled "Yes, right here, right now! I want you, Rese!"_

_"I want you too!"_

_His hands slid across her thigh and pulled her knee to his hip. Instantly she wrapped that leg around him. _

_They were so ready._

_First it was gentle, adjusting, almost shy, until after a while her body language requested him to pick up pace. Soon everything went deeper and vigorous. Kissing had become impossible since they needed too much air in their lungs. Little moans turned into constant groaning. Finally she cried out and they both came to a mutual happiness standing at the drawer cabinet in his study._

_When it had ebbed their bodies were covered in sweat._

_Clad in only her jumper _Therese stood a few moments leaning against the cabinet to regain some composure. __

_"Why on earth do you have johnnies in your pocket?" she chuckled.  
><em>

_"I've hoped this would happen, so I made provisions." He _cheekily _grinned and cupped her cheek._

_"Tonight we'll need one in my bedroom." he whispered._

* * *

><p><strong>(+X)<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>...<strong>


	5. Reality

**Author's note: **Did I already thank you for your reviews? Thank you!

I need to say something about that bouquet: Yes, I know, the "real" (LOL) Tommy never would do something like that but I needed him to make something deeply embarrassing so I could send her on her furious way. Let's say there must have gone something wrong with the address he gave to the delivery service ;-)

Now here's a chapter _without_ one of those Edinburgh stories. Because this is ...

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

**Reality**

**.**

* * *

><p>Tommy had finished this hot story that left him blushed deep red. And yes, he could not deny that he was a little bit aroused too. He tried to keep the image of Barbara out of his head the entire time but mostly failed. The similarities to those Scots were too obvious. In the heat of the moment he wrote a guest comment, signed with a <em>T<em>.

_nice story with an indeed very hot ending. dearly wish my colleague would be a little bit like her. not _necessarily_ like in the last chapter, definitely _not_ as battlesome as in the second, but her sweetness of the first chapter would be a good start._

He chuckled as he read his entry again. Then he desperately tried to delete his comment but to no avail. Resigning he read the reviews and found that there were comments from a user called _Barbed Wire_.

_Oh, god, this _must _be Barbara._ he thought. His prickly sergeant two doors from his room. Anytime soon she would read his comment, he knew it.

_I am an idiot._

He needed another whisky, or better some ice cubes to put into his nape, so he got up and shuffled into the living room to the mini-bar. He hoped she would be fast asleep at this hour, or at least safely in her room, so he had not bothered to put on a shirt or something.

* * *

><p>Barbara had browsed through the site and had read a story from a different author first. She had commented how sweet it was to see the two having raised a little family and how cute they interact. Then she turned to the next chapter of the hot stories collection which made her feel giddy and yes, also a bit frustrated.<p>

Indeed this was a hot encounter of the two at the drawer cabinet. Barbara could not get rid of the image of her DI when yesterday he had perched on the drawer cabinet in the main room while explaining her something about this old case they were reopening. When at some point she had not listened at all but eyed him shamelessly. Her mind drifted a little into a direction that would not be appropriate at all so she better brought herself to re-read another not so hot story before having a look at the comments.

She paled. And read the comment twice.

_It's all in your head, old girl. This could not possibly be your inspector. He's sleeping now and he _never_ would be reading _such_ things. Such a site never would exist in his proper world. _She shook her head to get his image out of her mind before she wrote her own comment - _Hot ending to a sweet confession. And just because one finally (!) had said something._ - and read T's comment again.

_Noooo, Barb. He _never_ would have come across those kinds of internet sites._

She emptied her beer. _But what if?_

She wondered that maybe lately she had been too lax with this laptop. He may have seen what she read and -

_Still no, he never would have left a comment. And at least one like _that_._

She got up to get herself a bottle of water from the fridge in the main room. She nearly tripped over her bloody shoes.

_Had a bit too much red wine, old girl, huh?_ She snickered to herself.

* * *

><p>Then Barbara stopped dead in her tracks. The sight that awaits her in the main room was of no great help for her current state of emotions. Tommy knelt in front of the mini-bar with nothing on but his pyjama bottoms. For the split of a second she just ogled his bum with the cloth tightened on it.<p>

_There you got it. You've wanted to see it in the afternoon. Now what?!_ she asked herself.

Then she tried to vanish back into her room but he already had gotten up and turned to her. He was not prepared for a meeting.

"Oh." Tommy managed. "Barbara. I, umm... just needed some ice... well... and wanted a second whisky."

_Since when did he drink his Scotch with ice?! _she wondered._  
><em>

He sized her up. The expression in his face was amazed but appreciative nonetheless. She knew she should not have come out of the room with just her oversized T-shirt on in which she used to sleep in the summer.

_[Their bodies were covered in sweat.] _his mind involuntarily quoted the story he had read._**  
><strong>_

"Feel yourself at home." Barbara croaked. "In fact it's _you _who pays these premises."

_His front is even more desirable!_ Barbara blushed. She could not think straight. She should get back to her room. Now. She should stop fancy him. Immediately. This is her guv! She is not even in his predator-prey system. She is just imagining that he looks like he is adoring her. And even if not, she would not end up as one of his short-termed affairs. A line in the last story crept into her thoughts: [_This would make of her just the little mistress of the guv.]_

_Though I really want to know how this would feel!_ The colour of her face had turned even darker.

* * *

><p>Barbara could not go back into her room, that would look too strange. So she straightened her shoulders and went past him to get the bottle she had been coming for. She had to round him because he had not moved from the spot he was standing.<p>

Tommy swallowed. Her blushing skin told him she had similar thoughts about their accidental meeting.

_[Oh, yes, right here, right now...] And she looks more than - Gods, inspector, behave. She's still your sergeant. You should not think of her that way. Even when her thighs were a vision you'll never ever get off your head again.  
><em>

He should go back into his room. He should in fact take a cold shower. He should not ogle her curves, discretely hidden under this oversized shirt. He should ignore her collarbone right next to the baggy hem of the shirt's wide neck.

_[He gnawed gently at her throat and she moaned.]_ His mind winced when those words came back to it. And he really should ignore that she was not wearing a bra. He should ignore it, but he could not.

_But I need to! Now!_

When he felt the desire slowly sinking into his lower body he knew he _had_ _to_ vanish into his room so he turned.

_[Everything became intense.]_

In his doorway he turned slightly back and wished her a good night.

"Sleep well. And no more reading under the covers." He winked. It was meant as a joke but for being funny it sounded too suggestive. He regretted saying it in the moment it was out. He knew that she knew that he knew what they both had read.

_Oh, why can't I keep my mouth shut?!_

Her wide eyes and her speechlessness told him he had hit the spot. Though he now was sure he should never have called her Cinderella. She was no dusty servant and he was no charming prince. Bloody hell, he should never have read those stories - his imagination suddenly ran riot.

_It _is_ to be his comment!_ she thought._ Is it not?_

"No. 'night!" she croaked and slammed the door of the fridge shut. The bottles inside tinkled.

The way across the room back to her door seemed to stretch into miles. That she still had not heard his door closing was of no great help. She knew his eyes were in her back. Slipping through her door and closing it immediately she realised he actually had not closed his yet. Barbara turned and looked back through the crack of her door. In fact he still watched her. In fact he had watched her the entirely long way from the fridge to her door.

Their eyes met and she hesitated.

_[Then they stared at each other in silence.] _There was so much desire in his eyes. A longing she would never have expected. A softness she never would have dreamed of. An affection towards her that she must be imagining. And a hesitancy she would not think possible next to such an open desire. Gentle love shimmered in the back of his eyes but also a restraint so intense that she almost saw something like sadness around the corners of his lips. No, for sure it _was_ sadness.

_He keeps to himself because I am his sergeant. But he would love to- hell, Barb don't mingle those stories with your life! You see _nothing_. There is _none_ of it in those dark eyes.  
><em>

Her eyes mirrored amazement and desire all at once. It was too late in the evening, she was a tiny little bit tipsy and she was entirely too tired to slip on her grumpy face with which she always could cover her emotions. She _knew_ she showed _clearly_ that she adored him. She showed _clearly_ that she would never think it would be answered likewise. Her eyes blinked with disbelief and yearning. She looked gloomed about her fondness towards him.

_As if it was unthinkable I'd care for her. Though it seems to me... Her eyes keep telling me... Am I mad or is she looking at me like she wished to... _His mind could not form a straight thought._ [__Let me catch you!]_

* * *

><p>With the memory of that line from the story he suddenly recognised that they still were looking at each other.<p>

"Close your door." he whispered.

"You first!" she answered likewise.

"I don't want to miss a single second of this view." he confessed. Their breathing had turned deep.

"Bollocks! We have to get up early, Sir." she objected. Everything inside of her screamed to go over to him. To drag him to the drawer cabinet that stood next to the fridge and have him make love to her there. [_T_hey bumped into the drawer cabinet when they lost balance._]_ She harrumphed.**  
><strong>

"Sleep well, Cinderella!" he said low without moving an inch. Her eyes widened at his words. He wanted nothing more but to scoop her up and carry her into his castle._ [Tonight we'll need one in my bedroom.]_

"Likewise, Prince Charming." she managed a shy but still slightly ironic smile. His eyes went dark at her reply. But before the rest of the blood would leave her body on its way into her face she averted her eyes to the ground and closed her door.

_What was _that_?!_ she wondered, still trembling when she laid in her bed.

She could not get to sleep for another hour. Neither could he.

_[They were so ready.]_

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>...<strong>


	6. Gelato

**Author's note: **I scream, you scream, everybody wants ice cream... :-D Well, let's give them a bit of _romanticismo_!

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

**Gelato**

**.**

* * *

><p>The next morning they both shared a breakfast table down in the restaurant so Barbara had no chance to check if there would be a new story or another chapter. She actually would not have <em>dared<em> to check anyway after the little real life intermezzo last night. She tried to shovel all inappropriate thoughts and all unacceptable feelings and all impossible possibilities and especially the tension of this sizzling situation into the farthermost corner of her stupid mind - totally unaware of the fact that Tommy did the same.

Breakfast went by still a little tense, the ride to the station was in unsettling silence, accompanied by one or the other odd sideglance, but when they met the nonstop-babbling commissario the mood and the tension between them lightened noticeable. A long day of dull file-scanning laid ahead. They were looking if the name of the relative that brought them here would have been mentioned anywhere there.

The local police had been busy dealing with 'some international meeting in town' like Montani quite casually had called this UN conference so they had only limited personnel. The three detectives sat in Montani's office, scanned the most important files, paper and digital, and soon started to make jokes about this dull work for lower ranks. It turned into stories about their first days at the respective authorities and at one point they were not looking into those files anymore at all. They sat there, sipping at their espressos and nibbling tiny Italian sweets. La dolce vita - italian worklife for the three indeed seemed to be very lax on this certain day.

Montani was amazed about the fact that Lynley was a real peer and he received a little lecture what that was about and how it affected Lynley's daily life. His words were accompanied by Barbara's rolling eyes.

"And noht tu menshen se munnie." the commissario laughed. "Dio mio, sees would be too much for-a me. I like my calm-e life. Even vissout oll-e se reechness." *

* * *

><p>At some point the conversation went over to the time Lynley and Havers were put together for the first time. They told of the problems and how hard it had been at their start, but when they eventually came to more personal matters of their crazy relationship - a partnership at work, of course - the Italian commissario could only listen and wonder and make some mental notes because they were more and more just talking to each other.<p>

Unnoticed by the two English _commissarios_ they gave clear proof with their do-you-still-remember-stories and memory-tales and their private nightmares they had helped each other through that there was far more between them than just this partnership at work. If not the longing affection his wife had sworn to him she had seen between those two then this was at least one of the deepest friendships he ever had witnessed.

Needless to say that they did not find the name in their stack of files but the policemen outside still had a majority of files ahead for the afternoon.

Lunch had been a sandwich in the office and for dinner it had been too early so Tommy invited Barbara for an icecream and a coffee on the other side of the commissariato. There she could have the eagerly anticipated cigarette, she added.

"Yah." he said with a deep sigh and eyed her sadly. "You smoke too much."

The little walk down memory lane in the safe presence of Signore Montani had left them more relaxed now. Somehow they had found back to their former banter, their usual habit with each other, except the trained eye could see it had turned a little softer, a little more tender, and it seemed that they talked with each other slightly more intense.

The topic indeed mostly had remained the previous case in Sheffield and of course the actual boring file-scanning and embarassing digging in the past. Then her mobile buzzed.

With an apologetic look at Tommy Barbara answered the call. Tommy got up and went to the Gents.

* * *

><p>"Havers?!"<p>

It was Winston.

_"Hi Cinderella! How are things going with Prince Charming?"_

"What?!" _Did he actually called me Cinderella?!_

_"Oh, never mind. He recently- ...oh, well, never mind. Forget it. Just joking. Umm... Reason I call's the following -"_ He wanted to get some details to report it to Hillier so Barbara gave him the little facts they had found out - actually nothing important.

_"Well, that's not much. You need to stay a little longer in the Italian sun, don't ya?"_

"Oh, hell, hopefully not. My clothes suit the muddy English woods, not a mediterranean city."

_"You still didn't shop? Barb, you're a woman! Grab that chance and buy some Italian fashion!"_

"Winston!"

_"Well, then go on sweating in your heavy boots. If I were you-"_

"_Of course_ I've already bought some lighter things, you wally."

_"Winnie. I'm _Winnie_! Not Wally." Winston laughed._

"Oh, bollocks..." Barbara rolled her eyes. "Say, he hasn't called me Cinderella, has he?"

_"No, Barbie, no. He wouldn't dare to!"_ Winston awkwardly laughed.

She was not really convinced. Even via telephone Barbara couldn't get rid of the idea that Winston was lying to her but for now she left it at that. Lynley was returning anyway.

* * *

><p>After a short detour to the office they went back to the hotel, sharing a simple dinner. Then Tommy took a heart and invited her for coffee and icecream once more.<p>

"Again? Now? It's not really time for ice cream, is it?!"

"Barbara, we're in Rome. _A Roma_, every time is _una ora di gelato_. Come, get moving." **

"You're mad." Barbara rolled her eyes but got up nonetheless.

"Yes, who cares?" Tommy grinned. Somehow he felt so lighthearted.

They took a cab and Tommy brought her to an ice cream shop in a hidden alley somewhere in the centre of the city.

_Oops, it's more romantic than I remember._ Tommy hoped that Barbara would not be embarrassed about that lovely spot. He just knew that the _gelateria_ was the best he ever had been to.

It was off the beaten tourist track but luckily everything but deserted. Some ancient wall on one side, a house with closed shutters on the other side and little tables out on the street. Many people sat there, Italian voices filled the air, somewhere a guitarist strummed the strings. It smelled of strong coffee, sweet ice and summer and suddenly Barbara would have loved to lean onto Tommy's shoulders.

_Oh, come back down to earth, old girl. _she wiped away her romantic thoughts._  
><em>

They ordered an espresso and some ice cream and after a while the small talk turned into a serious little conversation.

"Why did you behave like that?"

"When?"

"Years ago, when you've fuc..." she coughed, realizing what she was about to say. "Sorry. I mean, when you've _nearly_ made a mess of this case. And... everything..." Barbara waved her hand through the air.

They shared a long and pensive look. If Lafferty would have witnessed it he would have commented it as one of their silent conversations and probably would have tried to translate for Nkata what they were thinking.

_I was hurt. Bloody. Hurt. _would be his translation for Barbara's look at Tommy._  
><em>

_I didn't mean to hurt you. _would be his words for Tommy's look at Barbara._  
><em>

_It was really not easy to handle the whole thing with you, with Helen, with that... woman, with your disappearance..._

_I should have stayed in London. I should have walked a bit through Cornwall but I should have returned sooner to those I really could rely on._

_I was so lonely._

Then finally Tommy looked away and let let his gaze wander across the ancient stones across the street. Barbara needed to light a cigarette. She suddenly did not know what else to do with her hands.

"I think I was lonely."

"_You_ never were."

"I know now." He looked back into her eyes that never had left his. "Back then, after Helen's funeral, I really did not know what to think. I did not know how to arrange myself with my feelings, with my whole life it seems."

Barbara nodded. "So it appeared."

"I'm glad someone was there to drag me out of this... whatever..." Tommy diverted his eyes down on the table where he twiddled with his empty coffee cup. Then he let go an ironic chuckle. "Sometimes one needs a good long walk in fresh air and a hard kick in the butt to come to one's senses. And a friend who never loses patience and hope."

Barbara gave a disapproving sound and emptied her coffee. _You don't say._

"Thank you." Tommy took her hand that laid on the table and squeezed it softly. His thumb lightly stroked her fingers, thus her heart suddenly raced, her breathing suddenly went shallow, her mind suddenly was focussed on their hands. This little innocent contact made her forget the hurt, forget the loneliness when he had disappeared, the anger when he came back and made a mess of his life and of this case. His gentle fingers made her forgive him everything once more. And this little touch of his hand made her think of all possible meanings apart from the long overdue thanks. Barbara blushed.

In that moment the waiter came and asked of another order so Tommy's hand quickly retreated, the moment was gone and he just paid their coffees so they could leave the cafe.

* * *

><p>On the way to the nearest taxi rank down the short alley Barbara dearly wished he would take her hand again. She wanted to feel another little touch from him, wanted to relive the little sensation he caused in her belly.<p>

_This is ridiculous!_ she thought.

Before she could light another cigarette to have her hands again busied with something Tommy casually draped an arm around her shoulder. He sighed.

"Time to get back. We'll have an early appointment tomorrow."

* * *

><p>This night she did not read another story.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>...<strong>

* * *

><p>*Sorry, does it sound Italian? He said: "But not to mention the money. Dios mio (my god), this would be too much for me. I like my calm life. Even without all the richness."<p>

** _A Roma_, every time is _una ora di gelato_ = In Rome, every time is time for ice cream.


	7. Shower

**Author's note: **Okay, the Rese and Liam story at the end of this chapter is a bit longer than 600 words. Didn't know how to summarise it more. Splishy-splashy! Of course there is another twinned Get Together story.

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

**Shower **(Rese and Liam IV, 846)**  
><strong>

.

* * *

><p>In their hotel their ride up to their floor had been accompanied by an elder couple that had been smiling constantly and a young man. It had been extremely annoying. Due to the overcrowding Barbara had stood so close to her DI she could hear his breaths and smell the last fading wafts of his aftershave. Her mind had been working on high speed. She still had been aware of the pressure of his arm on her shoulders and had wondered how this evening will proceed.<p>

They had come to their door, he had opened it and let her in, then Barbara had remembered that he had pointed out their early date the next day and she had come to the conclusion that her funny brain must have been on a wrong path once more and she should make her excuse.

"Well, good night, Sir. See you at breakfast."

And with a brief smile she had hastened to her room. _Just good friends._ she had reminded herself. _Just. good. friends._

Tommy had not stopped her or asked for a nightcap. "Sleep well..." he had said nearly sighing.

He had poured himself a whisky and had waited, hoped in fact, that Barbara would come back to the main room but she did not. After a while he had left the beverage untouched on the coffee table and had gone to bed too.

_You're only imagining things, old boy._

* * *

><p>On their fourth day in Rome they had driven to this early appointment straight after breakfast. They had to meet a relative of "that woman". He seemed to definitely know who Lynley was, what happened between them and that he had been arrested in the aftermath of the event. He seemed not to be convinced of Lynley's innocence in that matter. Instead of sitting there and listen to that man speaking well of someone she fervently disliked Barbara would rather be somewhere else though she tried to look unimpressed and unaffected.<p>

They had not learned anything new except that in the eyes of that young man the woman must have been an angel. Once outside his house Barbara immediately lit a cigarette. This whole affair strained her nerves.

"That woman was such an angel, wasn't she?" she mumbled disgusted with her eyes going down the road.

"Not at all." Tommy answered. Then he withdraw her cigarette and ground the butt under his heel.

"Ahem?!" Still feeling the touch of his hand against hers Barbara looked at him absolutely unable of a different answer. Her angry thought _How can he dare! _fought against the sweet sensations the contact of his hands had caused._  
><em>

"You're smoking too much, Barbara." he smiled and appeared to go on with something but then he turned and opened the police car for her. He had intended to additionally tell her that smoking is unhealthy but then had put himself right. _Don't patronise her! She'd know this fact...  
><em>

After a short stop-over at the commissariato to find Montani off and after a short conversation with Montani's deputy Barbara collected the pile of files with hopefully more interesting informations and was brought back to the hotel. Lynley excused himself to run some personal matters. He wanted to meet a few businessmen for affairs with his estate. Lynley and Havers had agreed to meet later.

* * *

><p>Back in the suite and alone Barbara made herself comfortable on the large sofa and with the TV playing in the background she started to scan the files. Meanwhile she was sure there was nothing new to find and nothing that would bring them closer to any solution for this bloody and not very much important loose end. <em>Well, but if Hillier and Montani's superior think so, then so be it...<em>

In the afternoon - Barbara had received her ordered tea and cookies and had just lit a cigarette - she got a call from Lynley.

"Havers..." she once more had not checked the caller ID and answered as usually, this time with half a cookie in her mouth.

"Hi, it's me. You sound bored!?"

"I _am_, Sir."

"You're at the hotel?"

"Mhm." She looked at the ceiling and failed at making a smoke ring.

"And you're smoking again. You know that it is not allowed-"

"Yah, know, Sir."

"And still you do it. Do you know what it will cost me when they decide to renovate the room just because you couldn't stop yourself from smoking? At least open the window, Barb."

_Has he really called me Barb?_ Barbara choked and needed to cough.

"You see? _Stop_ smoking." And he added a surprisingly very tender "Please."

"Yes, _Dad_." His voice made her nervous. She got up and killed the cigarette on the outer window sill.

"Anyway." He sighed. "I was wondering how you get along. Anything important?"

"Nah. All's boring, nothing new, no new whatever we are searching for." She flicked the cigarette out of the window.

"And don't flick the cigarette out of the window again."

"I would never. _Dad_." She glanced into the street outside. _Is he watching me?! Or does he simply know me that well?_

"Good girl." Tommy chuckled. "Sorry. Well then, I just wanted to tell you that it's going to be a little later today. The lawyer of- ah, you don't care about details, do you?"

"Correct." She took another bite of that cookie.

"I need one or two hours more and have three to eight more coffees with those people."

"Yeah, I could do with a little free time without you, Sir. Stay as long as you want. I have TV and air-condition. And the files. So everything is just fine."

"Sorry 'bout the files, Barbara. I thought I could repay and invite you? Today dinner at 8. Dress nicely. I'll pick you up." Tommy laughed a little bit uncertain to fill the following silence. Both had recognised it was _exactly_ what Liam had written on the card in the bouquet for Therese after he had let her alone with the paperwork.

_He actually _has_ read that story!_ Then Barbara came to her senses and gave a nasty retort.

"You know, Sir, my clothes really don't fit into those posh restaurants you tend to choose. I've packed for a Sheffield wood tour, and I definitely haven't bought some fancy evening dress yesterday, so we may better opt for a pizza take away."

"Don't be silly. Even if you wear some muddy jeans, a thick woolen pullover and your Wellies you'd look nice." He paused. He imagined her dressed that way, walking the dog with him on the South West Coast Path near Nanrunnel and smiled. He swallowed and chickened out. "Oh, sorry, need to hang up. See you at eight."

_Gods! _he thought._ How childish! I behave like a teenager._

* * *

><p>He had disconnected and left a slightly baffled Barbara on the other side of the phone. She stared into her mobile and wondered if he really had said what she had heard, and if so - <em>what the hell does that mean?!<em>

After a time of simply staring out of the window she shook her head to get rid of these crazy thoughts and opened the laptop. She needed a distraction from her silly mind and opened some of the digital files. Against her better judgement she only read half of one and then directly opened the browser and that fan fiction site.

On the other side of the city Tommy stared at his mobile phone and called himself a bloody coward. In fact he had not needed to hang up, he just had pretended some kind of urgency though he momentarily was alone. His next appointment even was half an hour in the future. He could have spent parts of it talking with Barbara but now it was too late. When he had ended that call he simply had backed off when he had realised that he openly had called her pretty.

_Well, or something like that. Which she actually _is_. What she probably hears too less. I could call her again and say that I really meant it. Yes, or I could stand up and shout at the next passerby that I am a bloody idiot._

Tommy shook his head and opened the browser on his smartphone.

Another story was released. _Well, I could kill some time..._

* * *

><p><strong>(X+)<strong>

* * *

><p><em>MacKenzie and Gibson were off from Edinburgh once more and had a difficult day. After dinner they worked through files in the pub until it closed and they went upstairs.<em>

_In his room Liam immediately dragged her against his chest, invading her mouth. _

_Therese slipped the files. "Hmmmm..." she murmured appreciatively.  
><em>

* * *

><p><em>Some days ago he had confessed that he needed to stop their dance around each other. "This has been going on for too long now. Therese, look at me. Let's dance <em>with_ each other." He had kissed her without resistance when he had _pulled her into an embrace_._

_Since then there had been no time to deepen their encounter in any way.  
><em>

_"Sir, the files..."_

_"To hell with them, Rese. I want to -" He stopped and watched her. His desire had grown since their first kiss, it still grew and he knew she was feeling it growing now. Her eyes widened with a certain pleasure._

_"I want to make love to you." Liam entered her mouth._

_All his efforts to free her from her clothes were futile and her hands grabbed his in the end._

_Liam groaned. "You cruel lass!"_

_"We need to read those files or have some sleep before we continue this investigation."_

_"I want to investigate _you_!" Liam whispered against her neck._

_Therese sighed and closed her eyes. "God, yes... No! We have a job..."_

_"We always have!" he groused. "Tomorrow I simply want to get up _tired_!"_

_His lips met the sensitive spot behind her ear he had found would leave her helpless. It had been at a red light and must have been the hottest goodnight kiss the traffic surveillance ever had witnessed._

_"Mmmmh!" she moaned but then stopped herself. "_Not now!_" Again she stilled his hands. "Stop! Liam, I have not waited all those years to have it off with you at a random hotel room door. No objections! Cool off!"_

_She had gone to her room and tried to sleep but after some minutes she sneaked across the corridor, back into his room._

_Therese could hear the shower in his adjoining bathroom, took the handle, took a deep breath and entered._

* * *

><p><em>A hand raked over his shoulder, fingers walked across his arm.<em>

_"Rese!" Liam croaked._

_"I couldn't sleep, Liam..." Therese whispered. "Don't turn." She placed a kiss onto his shoulder.  
><em>

_In the most delicious way her hands traced out every muscle, every curve and every bone. Her lips caressed each moving muscle. She let the back of her fingers glide down his sides until she_ delicately moved her fingertips around and squeezed his upper thighs. She could hear his moan sounding through his chest._  
><em>

_"Therese!" he choked and could not help but turn. She turned too, making him melt under a seductive look._

* * *

><p><em>Facing the fogged partition she felt his fingers tracing her back and the heat <em>radiating <em>from his body. While his hand slid across her skin he kissed her shoulder and _licked the water from her neck. _She pressed her flat hands onto the glass._

_"William!" Her voice was throaty when she finally felt him pressing into her back. She closed her eyes. Liam heard another sharp intake of breath._

__"That's me."_ he groaned and wiped the fog from the pane. _"Open your eyes, Therese!_"_

__Their eyes locked in the mirror on the opposite wall.__

_Without any shame both watched his hands move around her body. Therese closed her eyes and pulled herself together so as not to moan out loud in pleasure. His lips nibbled on her earlobe. One hand cupped her breast and the other finally slid between her legs._

_"That's me." she hissed._

_"Not in the doorframe." He kissed her shoulder and stroked her inner right thigh._

_"Not on the bed." He dug his teeth into her neck and stroked her inner left thigh._

_"Not on the carpet." His whisper made her shiver. His fingers slid across her wet centre._

_"No." Her voice failed. "Right here."_

_Liam lifted her leg and pressed her chest slightly forward._

_"Right _now_." Liam moaned.  
><em>

_Their eyes were locked in the mirror when he slid into her._

* * *

><p><em>"Help me?" Her eyes widened when he guided her hand down.<em>

_She saw their bodies moving, saw him squeezing her breast, saw herself buckling with a shudder of lust. Never leaving the blurred sight of their bodies in the mirror Therese bent a little more forward. Liam could only bear one thing - either the sight _or_ the feeling of them making love. He closed his eyes.  
><em>

_Therese arched her body and reached behind her. She could feel him still growing. She panted her pleasure onto the pane while a sensation rippled through her. The tiled walls echoed their synchronous moans._

_In the mirror Therese could see the delighted concentration in his face._

_In the mirror Liam could see the enchanted smile in her face._

_Both felt the centering sensation reaching for the target. Then both let go. With locked eyes in the mirror, they both groaned themselves over the edge._

* * *

><p><em>Tomorrow they <em>would_ get up __tired._

* * *

><p><strong>(+X)<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>...<strong>


	8. Sunny Afternoon

**Author's note: **This contains some rambling thoughts. Fingers flowing... I was not really guiding what they wrote, I just let them flow like thoughts. Crazy, messy, silly, not really revised. Sorry for that but I hope it mirrors exactly what I had intended. This is a bit emotional. No Rese and Liam again. They're a bit busy with themselves.

Oh, and thanks for your inspiring reviews! ;-)

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

**Sunny Afternoon****  
><strong>

**.**

* * *

><p>Having finished reading this hot piece of writing Tommy secretly glanced around uneasy and felt as if everybody was watching him. Everybody would know what he had read and - far worse - would know what, respectively <em>who<em>, he was thinking of, would read his thoughts focussed on his sergeant and - the absolute worst - could _see_ what he was feeling. Without ostentation he bent over the table to stir his now cold latte macchiato. Some suspicious beads of sweat had appeared on his brow - it must have been the hot Roman weather. The sun beat down mercilessly.

_Should I? Should I not?_ He was not sure if it was the right thing but Tommy needed to express it and wrote a guest comment.

_Where is a cold lake when you need one?! Not a story you should read in a bistro, out in the sunshine. Good work.  
><em>

He did not sign it this time.

Clicking on the other reviews he read Barbed Wire's comment: y_owza! Oh, such a steamy story - literally! love that she had the guts to enter - how convenient that he didn't lock the doors! These two remind me of another pair in Oxford ;-)  
><em>

_Another pair? Wait! Who?! In Oxford? Huh?!_ Tommy was a bit irritated because his mind had been focussed on a different _other pair_ but she could not refer to _them_, she could not be thinking what he was and besides it was not in a shower in Oxford, it has been Cambridge. Tommy had no clue what she was referring to and then suddenly realised that he never had heard her lock turning when she went to her room like _he_ never locked _his_ door. _If she'd wish, Barbara could come into- Oh, behave! Such an encounter is highly unlikely. She'd never show up in my bathroom. She wouldn't even show up in my room! _

He blankly watched the people go by while he was deep in thought about his sergeant. About all the possible ways he could confess his care for her like Liam did in those stories. _Wait! _Do_ I care for her? Or rather - how _deeply_ do I care for her? _

He looked at his mobile phone as if it would answer his questions. _Does she feel the same? No, this is equally unlikely. I'm her Prince Poncy, not her Prince Charming. _

He chuckled. _Barbara - my Cinderella with the little muddy walking boots... And definitely my best friend. _And_ my sergeant._

He sighed. _I should stop thinking of her that way. All the more because she would not possibly come over to me like in that silly story. Though I wish- Hell, now get a grip, old lecher - this is DS Barbara Havers you're thinking of. Not one to just have a... sexual relationship with, I'm not after my best friend..._

_Or am I?_

He turned the glass in his fingers. _Am I? Or more? Isn't there a deeper feel- No, but, well... I don't know, I don't know _me_ anymore, this is... _I should have stopped reading this story somewhere at its start. No, I _shouldn't read these stories at all. I shouldn't. They only support this bloody turmoil. Whatever it is. It could not be described in one or two words. I'm just deeply in trouble. It's not only that I fantasize of her, I'm deeply in love- _

_"Oh, heavens..." _Tommy swallowed. _Maybe she actually _would_ come over- Or should _I_? Oh my - _I really, really should __not__ read those stories anymore at all. I feel like I'm losing my usual well-ordered behaviour. I'm definitely losing the last bits of my decent mind.  
><em>_

Tommy ordered an iced coffee. He hoped he would have cooled off and sorted his brain before the forementioned lawyer would join him in that bistro.

* * *

><p>She had left her comment. That pair she was referring to was "Robson", Robbie Lewis and Laura Hobson, in a certain story in the <em>Lewis<em>-community.* After finishing this Rese and Liam story Barbara was glad that she had read it in the suite and not once more in a public place. Throughout the entire story she had unconciously been mingling those two with herself and her dear Inspector, eventually slipping into a sweet state of pleasure. The scent of his aftershave seemed to be still lingering in the air of the room though she did not know for sure if it was only in her head.

What she could not have seen was that Lynley's jacket still hung on the armchair that stood behind her head on the armrest on the sofa.

Barbara also was glad that they had their own ensuite bathrooms this time. No encounter like some years ago in the caravan or in all those countless little B&Bs throughout their working partnership was possible. And most definitely she won't get into his room and wait to see him coming from the shower with nothing on but a towel like she did years ago.

_...when I've peeped through the open bathroom door to see Tommy's naked bum under the shower. Through the fogged pane._ Barbara blushed. _Wow, that was a sight to remember!_ she thought with a dreamy smile and blushed a little more.

Not at all would she enter his room so bluntly anymore and the last place she would go was his bathroom. Much less when he was taking a shower. And she certainly would not join him.

_Really? Would I not? Would I not at least spend some naughty thoughts on that again?  
><em>

She chuckled and lit another cigarette which she immediately stubbed out again.

_Well, was it really a fortune we could not share a bathroom once more? Has it really been that bad that I had witnessed his shower years ago, back in time in Cambridge? Had I not been... happy that I could see him this way? Wasn't that comfort food for my eyes, for my imagination?_

Barbara sipped at her lukewarm tea. _Am I not longing to see him once more clad in nothing but a white towel? This sexy-  
><em>

She swallowed and pressed a cushion into her face. "Noooo!" she grunted into the feathers. _I should stop this futile little-girl raving. No Prince and Princess, no happy ending for me. No stolen glance across his naked chest, around his hips, over the bulge under white terrycloth, this promising view of his still in shape body, with little water droplets running down his belly, with pleasurable-  
><em>

"Forget that!" she suddenly told herself. _Oh, mercy! I am so crazy, stupid, silly, idiotic- helplessly, madly, deeply in love- Oh, bloody hell, I _must_ get back down to reality._

She sighed. _But... _"No!" _No _but_. It's not... I am his sergeant, he is my boss, we are best friends - best! friends! Get a prip, for heaven's sake! We won't destroy that by having it off in his shower._

She moaned when she realised that she wanted exactly this. _And more. So much more._ She wanted to share everything. _Exactly everything._ She wanted her own happily ever after. And exactly with him. _With Prince Poncy. This bloody hundredth or whatever Cornish peer. This stiff, stubborn, chaotic, messy feelings, tight-lipped, gentlemanly, bloody handsome best friend of mine..._

She banged her fist into the cushion on her legs and shed a few angry tears. Then she determined herself to have a _very_ _cold_ shower. She hoped she would have cooled off before he would pick her up. _At eight. Nicely dressed._ She felt the desperate, pleasurable thoughts returning and hurried under the water in _her own_ shower, in _her own_ adjoining bathroom.

* * *

><p>After her shower and due to the heat - and due to her own lazy mood - Barbara only had put on her nighty, her oversized T-shirt that is and had spent the rest of the day in the much larger and much better air-conditioned main room. When Lynley came around at a quarter to eight she still had not yet changed. Sitting in her nighty on the sofa, she read in one of the books from the shelf in the suite. After her shower she had chosen to read a book instead of reading on the net. She had wanted to keep her mind decorous. She had picked a story by Charlotte Bronte. She was so deep in that book that she startled when Tommy finally addressed her, already standing right next to the sofa.<p>

"Hello?"

"Aaah!" Barbara cried and jerked. "Tommy! How dare you?! You want me to die of a heart attack?!" Then she leaned back again, trying to slow down her breathing. Amazed about the bygone time she looked at the clock on the wall.

"Sorry, I wasn't aware I was sneaking in." Tommy smiled the little smile he always saved for Barbara. _She called me Tommy. She finally! did! it!_

He told himself not to mention this wonderful fact that so deeply touched him. His own heartbeat was going a little bit faster and he tried to cover it up with a light banter. "So deep in that story?" He teased and took the book from her hands, registering her bare legs, trying to swallow away his dangerous thoughts and to reassure himself of her innocent behaviour. _She's not seducing me! It's just because of the heat. Oh, but she's definitely not making it easy for me. _

He needed to get his focus on something different than her bare legs, her cutely wiggling toes. Before he got himself deeper again he focussed on that book in his hands.

"Hmm... Jane Eyre. Good choice. Now, get up and dress. We have a date at eight." He winked. "I hope you already have showered."

Then Tommy stared at her, suddenly realising his unintended innuendo - if she had read this story too. Barbara stared back.

_She _has_ read the story too._

Barbara deeply blushed at his wink and the following expression on his face.

_He has read that story too._

"I... umm... yes, I have. I'm going to change. Sorry, Sir." With that she hurried into her room to get dressed.

* * *

><p>But first she had to sit down on her bed to take a deep breath. She buried her face in her palms. <em>Oh, bloody hell, I will not survive this evening. He's making me so bloody nervous. He makes me feel like a teenager. It's a lot too thin. I can't bear this. And I'm in this crinkled sleepy T-shirt again. I am a bloody idiot for not getting dressed before.<em>

"Argh!" She fell back on her bed and stared at the ceiling. _I've just cooled off and within the second he's there I'm a wreck again. I need some time off from this. Honestly - he had caressed my legs with his eyes. Gosh, no, Barbara! He hasn't. He has simply recognised I'm not properly dressed for dinner. That's all!  
><em>

She got up and the thought of Tommy caressing her legs still filled her head. She really needed to throw some very, very cold water into her face.

_This is going to be a hell of an evening._

* * *

><p>While she changed into <em>something<em> _nice_ Tommy went to shower. It had been a hot day - in so many ways - and there simply was the need to have a little _cooling_ _off_.

He stood under the swooshing water and had soaped his body. Now he just let the water stream down his skin, his face held up to be massaged by the water. His thoughts were on that naughty story he had read in the bistro and he mingled it with a well known person three doors away.

When his thoughts finally went too far into the guts he dragged himself back into reality and turned off the hot water.

_I can't fantasise about her like that! _The cool water had its desired effect but still his thoughts stayed on his sergeant and her bare legs. Lying on the sofa. Wiggling her toes. Blushing.

_And she had called me Tommy!_ His heart made a jolly jump. _And she did not even recognise it. She's so... Mmmmh. Hurry, old boy, you're already late... Oh dear - this is going to be an interesting evening._

He took on his new light suit, loosely put on his tie, then adjusted it, then shook his head and loosened it again. With still slightly damp hair he knocked at Barbara's door precisely at eight o'clock.

* * *

><p>"Ah, shit!" Barbara cursed and Tommy, on the other side of the door, had to chuckle again. <em>She's not yet ready.<em> he thought and wanted to turn but then the door opened and Barbara rushed outside. He raised his eyebrows and gave her his special what-is-it-now-look. While bending down to her new shoes that - of course - laid spread in front of the sofa, she presented her bum.

_Oh, god._ Tommy turned and needed to look elsewhere.

Barbara funnily hopped around while trying to put her shoes on as fast as she could. "Sorry, Sir. Ah, there... Sorry. Just my... bag. Where is it?" she rambled on.

With delighted eyes Tommy watched her searching around, wondering how sweet and crazy she was. Not at all like those straight, ever so perfectly dressed women he knew that surrounded him in his world, always in control of the situation, always decent, always pretending to behave well. So false, showing their facades so cute and innocent and whatever they liked to play.

_Barbara does not need to pretend. She _is_ cute and innocent. And very real. _

And then Barbara suddenly stood at the door with a red face, her hair somewhat in a mess and slightly out of breath, but looking at Tommy as if she had calmly waited for him the entire time.

"Alright, ready. Shall we?" And she beamed at him innocently smiling.

The only thing that filled Tommy's mind was that he wanted to swoop her in his arms and carry her away to the fairy land where she obviously belonged.

_Gods, I must be crazy!_

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>...<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Author's note: <strong>I'm afraid I need a few days for the next chapters. So please be patient.

* * *

><p>*which is the story that inspired me to the mirror-scene: <em>jackdawsinflight - Risqué Ramble<em> (TV shows/Lewis) - thank you!

And thanks to Hobsonfan because I nearly forgot to mention it.


	9. Italian Restaurant

**Author's note: **I so love reading your reviews. They mostly make me grin or even laugh. Now that the bathroom is wiped *chuckles* - is anybody hungry? Then let's have dinner...**  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong><strong>.<strong>**

****Italian Restaurant****  
><strong>**

**.**

* * *

><p>He had chosen a simple restaurant outside the usual touristic area. He was the only one in there with a tie and surely felt a little overdressed. Surreptitiously he loosened it a bit more while hiding behind the menue.<p>

"Sir!" Barbara whispered with a worried face and looked around to see if someone is watching or listening. "I can't choose! I don't speak Italian." Her confession brought a small loving smile onto his face.

Speaking a little Italian, or better knowing some Italian food words, Tommy had chosen the courses.

As it turned out, with the safety barrier of the table between them and something to keep their hands busy with, they could talk free and open. Starting with the so called case they soon went over to some holiday stories and unnoticed by both they had arrived at the coffee after the meal and a very personal conversation about what they expect from their future - at work and in private. Apart from the different locations they preferred, he was more rural and she was urban of course, their expectations wer not totally different. Barbara listened carefully to Tommy's enthusiastic stories about his youth on the estate of Howenstow. Eventually she let a short story of her own youth in Acton drop in.

Late in the night they still sat there as the only guests, with a bottle of red wine between them, his tie undone next to the almost burnt down candle, her bare feet on the chair next to her. Both were totally relaxed - they still talked, they laughed, they kept silent, they drank wine and they talked a little more. They even brushed the stiff subjects of Helen or Azhar.

The staff did not care to still have guests and was slowly tidying up around them, drinking some wine too and chatting with each other. But all too soon the bottle between their guests was empty. Tommy already had payed when he came back from the Gents, when the owner finally bid them goodnight.

"La ringrazio! Signora, grazie mille! Signore, buona notte!"*

* * *

><p>In the cab on their way back to the hotel Barbara laughed. "You've probably honored him with the highest tip ever, Sir. He nearly kissed your hand."<p>

"Well, he kissed yours. So I think he definitely is _un macho_." Tommy returned her laughter.

"A Casanova, I'd say." She grinned.

Now being so close to her again and without the table between them he recognised again how beautiful she was tonight. During the evening, and surely with a little help from the wine, she had relaxed more and more and now she was literally beaming happiness. Her eyes sparkled, her lips smiled, she had teased him on their way out of the restaurant to be a clerk of the NHS constantly deterring her from smoking. She had ground her only just lit cigarette anyway.

He recalled a silent moment of the evening when they both had just realised once more how many years now they were working as partners. She had said it aloud.

"Nobody would have expected this relationship would survive a single case. Not even I, 'n' I suppose you didn't as well. And now look at us..."

Then they had fallen silent and had lingered in their own thoughts. He had completed her sentence in his mind.

_...like an old couple. Only without having been a young couple before. _he bitterly had added._  
><em>

Then he had watched her fiddling with her napkin, briefly biting both of her lips in her own special way, like she always did when she was thinking about something embarrassing, nervously looking down. He had known she would not have looked at him, at least not more than quickly glancing up, so he had had all the time in the world to watch her, to let his gaze slowly wander down her neck, to the crook of it where he had spotted a small something on a thin silver necklace. It was a feathered medieval helmet with a ventail. It had glittered above the hem of her top. He had had a vague idea about a former London ice-hockey team but had not been sure. His thoughts meanwhile had gone a bit more southwards on her figure so he simply had forgotten to ask. He had been captured by her beautiful naturalness. With her confident ease. With her relaxed mood.

_Especially with the little buzz she has. Did my mind actually called her beautiful? I must have boozed too much myself._ He looked out of the window on his side of the car when the comfortable silence between them stretched. Otherwise he would have continued to stare at her.

* * *

><p>Barbara believed that she <em>definitely<em> had too much wine tonight. She was very aware of Tommy sitting so close now in that little Roman taxi. Constantly her nose smelled his scent, his aftershave and all, that soothing musky smell of wood and leather and Thomas Lynley. Her brain constantly processed his scent and sent reminders of his proximity to the little hairs on her right arm. She felt a little tipsy and nearly adventurous. But she would not dare to take his hand that rested on the seat next to him, next to her hand, though it really looked inviting. She closed her eyes. It had been an entirely pleasurable and not at all embarrassing dinner and she definitely did not want the evening to end. But it already was 1:30 a.m. and they were not on a holiday though momentarily it felt a bit alike.

She sighed.

_And tomorrow we'll probably close those files and fly home. Back home to the daily London routine._

* * *

><p>Tommy paid the taxi while Barbara already was on her way inside. He turned and watched her walking in her typical straight forward walk. <em>Umm, well, perhaps with a little boozy sway. But it suits her. How sweet.<em> He smiled. Her long messy hair fell lovely across her shoulders and flapped a bit with every swinging step.

Her new pants were as slack as every piece of her clothes always was, only the top with the thin straps was a bit tighter and slightly extravagant for her usual appearance, he would say. Especially with the scarf she had draped around her shoulders now that the night had gotten a little bit cooler. _And she wears it like a queen wears her robe. But so sexy- Oh my, I'm doing it again - bloody wine... _Tommy swallowed.

The young doorman who had seen Tommy's stare winked at him with a smug smile when he passed but immediately straightened his face and averted his eyes when Lord Asherton awarded him with a withering death-glare.

In the lift they stood in silence and stared at the closed door. The soft sound of dull music dripped through a hidden loudspeaker. It was like in a bad movie and soon Barbara started to suppress a grin.

Tommy saw it and he felt equally amused so he played along asking politely uninterested like one who was just met at a random lift "Nice weather today, isn't it?" He grinned. "You're on your holidays, ma'am?"

Then both laughed out loud and still laughing they went through the otherwise quiet corridor to their suite. He had put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed them. Sadly he had to let her go when he unlocked the door.

Inside he asked if she wanted a nightcap but she refused with reference to next day's early work.

"Well, then..." he took her hand and placed a soft kiss on it. "Have a good rest." He smiled. _Cinderella... Oh, how I wish I had the guts to carry you to my castle.  
><em>

Barbara nearly swooned and looked at him with wide eyes. _This is not actually happening..._ she told herself._ I have a red wine delirium. I should go to bed..._

When he made no move to turn or walk away or do _anything_ she blushed. They just looked at each other for another second or two before she abruptly turned, whispering a shy " 'night, Sir." and disappeared in her room.

* * *

><p>She leaned against the door and took a deep breath. Then she told herself again that it was all in her imagination or just the effects of the red wine they had drunk too much of. <em>Tommy wasn't usually so... ridiculous. He's played my knight with that kiss. Oh, how I wish he would not have been so chivalrous! I need... Bollocks! You need to go to bed now! Silly girl!<br>_

Lying in bed she replayed all those sizzling moments of the evening that had led to nothing and tomorrow would be their last day in Rome for sure. She could not fall asleep. So at some point she decided to look for a distraction, beside all those love stories there were quite some nice case or adventure or family fics on that well known site.

Needless to say that her browser was on the same page where she had left it. She should have known better. She could not resist. Against all better judgement she clicked on the next Rese and Liam story.

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>...<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Author's note: <strong>Not yet, dear friends, not yet! ;-)

* * *

><p>* "La ringrazio! Signora, grazie mille! Signore, buona notte!" = I thank you! Madam, many thanks! Sir, good night!<p> 


	10. Birthday

**Author's note: **This chapter starts with a Rese and Liam story. I just thought I should emphasise this so maybe you'd like to read the Barb and Tommy version first.

* * *

><p><strong><strong>.<strong>**

****Birthday ****(Rese and Liam V, 848)****  
><strong>**

**.**

* * *

><p><strong>(X+)<strong>

* * *

><p><em>Tomorrow was her birthday and she had wanted to celebrate tonight but everybody else had been occupied so Therese had asked MacKenzie out for dinner. He had messed it up with his stupid suggestion that of course <em>he_ would pay. It had ended in an argument. She had rushed home and had finished her first drink at six._

He had ruined everything!

_She finished her second drink at six thirty._

_Therese was quite tipsy when MacKenzie finally knocked at her door at eight._

_"Have a drink?" Therese slurred. She gave him hers and left him standing in the door to make another one._

This will be funny._ Liam thought. He sat down and waited._

_Therese came back and glared at him. Waving her drink she grumbled on while he kept silent. She snorted. He sipped at his drink. This was not about the dinner. This was very personal._

_"I just wanted to have a _simple nice _evening, Liam." Her glass was empty._

_"You know what?" She put the glass on the table with a thud. He sighed. He could tell that she was more than just tipsy. Her articulation was everything but straight._

_"I don' care 'bout bloody consequences, Liam. To hell with everythin'. Tonight... tomorrow... ummmonday... I ask for a transfer to... wherever... b'tonight... _tonight's _about _me. _T'night I take what _I _want._ _And I want _you_, Liam. Just for tonight I make you-" _[]

_She hiccupped._

_"...mine. _[]_ I m- _[]_ -make love to you. Even- _[]_ -'f's the last _[]_ thing you'n'I will be- _[]_ -doin' together. To hell with _[]_ tomorrow."_

_Liam could not believe that this scenario was real._

_"You!" she earned a quizzical look._

[]

_She pointed at her bedroom door. "Get into that _[]_ room!"_

_Liam swallowed. "No. You-"_

_In that moment she heavily plonked into his lap, pushed him into the backrest and invaded his mouth._

_Liam could not help but respond. It was a deep kiss, full of desire, though she constantly hiccupped._

_Liam brought himself to firmly push her away. "Rese... You're far too drunk. We-"_

_She kissed him again._

_"Mmmmh. Therese! We _can_ continue when you're sober." _She probably won't remember.

_Therese sat on his lap, pouted and hiccupped so desirably sweet that he struggled hard not to give in._

_"But... _[]"

_"No, Rese." He pulled her tenderly against his chest. With a low voice he soothed her until he heard a soft snoring._

_Liam sighed and carried her to her bed._

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><em>Therese woke up with a bad headache and the memories of the evening only slowly returning.<em>

_"Happy Birthday, idiot." she mumbled into her pillow. Now she needed a strong tea and painkillers._

_On her way into her lounge she stopped dead in her tracks. There sat a very relaxed smiling DI in socks, tea and painkillers on the table. Therese reassured herself that she had slept decently dressed. Liam must have slept on her sofa._

_" 'morning." he said._

_Therese moaned in frustration. What an _awkward _birthday morning._

_"...still here?" she croaked._

_"Breakfast." he nodded._

_Therese watched him getting a tray with buttered toast._

_"Hmph." She slumped onto her sofa and swallowed a painkiller.  
><em>

_"Sir, about yesterday... I'm sorry..." she blushed and could not look at him. "I've gone too far."_

_Liam sipped at his tea. He had thought a lot when Therese was peacefully sleeping. He offered his apologies in return. "Though I must confess I really would like to see more of your straightforward side."_

_Therese looked at him wide-eyed. Now _he _blushed._

_"No... I didn't mean... I mean you could be more self-confident sometimes."_

_Then he blushed a little more. "Well, that other... In fact I quite enjoyed the kiss, but honestly... Well, call me romantic but our first time should definitely not be _that _way..."_

_Shyly smiling Liam stopped his rambling. He was not sure if his cryptic words were clear enough._

_Therese looked at him blankly, then rose. She swallowed, harrumphed, swallowed again. Without breaking eyecontact she gestured towards her bedroom._

_"The offer still stands." she croaked._

_"No." Liam whispered and held out a hand. "Not _that _way either."_

_She took his hand and they shared a deep look. His thumb caressed the back of her hand. What if they overstepped the carefully maintained line between them now?_

_Therese cursed, overstepped that bloody line, straddled him and pushed him into the backrest. With a deep inhale of air she cupped his stubbly face with both hands and initiated a passionate kiss._

_Liam had no objections this time - as if Therese would have accepted any._

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><em>They continued where they had stopped yesterday. Therese took his words to heart and showed him her straightforward side. She took what she wanted - Liam. Very straightforward she made love to him right there.<em>

_After their overwhelming encounter Liam wrapped a blanket around them._

_"...hope 't's not always so... exhausting." Therese mumbled onto his neck._

_"No." Liam whispered into her hair. "But only on anniversaries I let you act so imperious."_

_"Hmmmm." Therese smiled without opening her eyes. "Macho!"  
><em>

_"Happy Birthday, Rese."_

* * *

><p><strong>(+X)<strong>

* * *

><p>"Macho?!" Her head still dizzy from the wine and that story Barbara chuckled while she wrote her comment.<p>

_congratulations! what an exciting ride! I like this adventurous side of her. he could do with some of it too!  
><em>

She thought she could do with some of it herself. Or she just needed to get herself another drink. Make herself drunken and with that maybe a bit more blunt, more courageous, less cowardly, less shy, less stuck in her room.

_And more hangoverish tomorrow morning! Oh, hell, what a pity!_

She was a bit tipsy and not quite sure if her eyes did not betray her but she was sure that the light in the main room had been off when they both had popped off to their rooms. Now it shone through the keyhole of the antique doorlock. Some sort of tapping like bare feet on wood could be heard. Then the light disappeared again and it was silent. She blinked and thought it must have been the giddiness coming from the red wine but after a short while the light reappeared. Putting the laptop aside Barbara sat up.

Her ears recognised some more shuffling in the main room and she would have sworn she heard clinking glass and bare footsteps and then the light was off again. A faint sound of something brushing against her door made her heart race. Deep inside she wished he would come into her room. She had no doubt that it was Tommy standing in front of her door. But there was no knock, no whispered question if she was still awake, no creaking door or light shining through it of course and soon the only light that was in her room was the once again reappearing light through the keyhole, the only sounds audible were some tapping again, the closing of his door on the other side of the main room straight after the lights went off with a loud click.

_I should have called him in. I really could do with some of Rese's courage! I'm a bloody coward!  
><em>

Frustrated Barbara hid her head under her pillow. Sleep came late.

* * *

><p>At that same time Tommy crouched under his blanket. <em>I am a bloody coward.<em>

When Barbara had refused the nightcap he had gone to his room and prepared for the night. Then he had laid in his bed and had wondered what he should do. This had been such an entirely pleasurable, comfortable evening. Sure, they've had a bit too much wine but they had not been drunk, not even fully tipsy. He should have...

_...dragged her into my chest. I should have pinned her against the wall and tell her what I want. Show her. Kiss her. I should have tried to convince her that a nightcap would be... nice... pleasurable... prolonging the evening... giving me more time to act... What a bloody coward I am._

Then he had gotten up and had sneaked through the main room to her door where he had stopped, not knowing what to do. He had wanted to knock but then had not dared to and had moved to the bottle of whisky on the drawer cabinet. Looking out of the window into the pale Roman city night he had downed a drink and then had returned to her door. Still Tommy could not bring himself to knock. He simply had put his hand on her door and holding his breath he had stroked the wood.

He dearly would have loved that she would not have been so reasonably, that she would have been a bit less composed when they had returned to the suite. Tomorrow they probably would fly back home. All this stupid file searching and re-opening of old wounds and the bloody seductive city of Rome in its medieval summer sun had led to nothing but personal confusion and they would return with no real success. Nothing had happened, nothing will ever happen. They constantly took dead end roads, feigning a destination by hiding their pointlessness with its zigzag ways.

His hand had fallen down at his side and angry with himself he had returned to his room, heavily pushing the poor light switch in the main room.

_Nothing will ever change. Nobody will ever overstep that bloody line between us._

Tommy pulled the blanket over his head in order to close out the entire cruel world. He felt like he had not felt for a very, very long time - helpless. It took a while before he finally fell asleep.

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>...<strong>


	11. A good idea

**Author's note: **It may not look that way in the beginning of this chapter but I think we're getting closer somehow...

* * *

><p><strong><strong>.<strong>**

**A good idea**  
><strong>**

**.**

* * *

><p>The mediterranean sun rose and the fainthearted silence was back.<p>

* * *

><p>The next morning Barbara politely thanked Tommy once more for the pleasurable evening but then they barely spoke a word. The pleasure and fun and the comfortable closeness they had yesterday evening under the loosing influence of the red wine now had turned into guilt for betraying their friendship by having those thoughts and desires about the other. It had turned into even more hesitancy and fear that the other might be offended, might not reciprocate those feelings. They did not know that all their emotions were mutual, yesterday night at dinner and afterwards as well as today at breakfast.<p>

In Montani's office they had spent the time until noon with finishing this 'case'. They had found nothing new, nothing that would have led anywhere. Hillier was called and told of the results so he gave the order to return to London. They finally closed their files and wrote each a short report. Those loose ends were tied into a neat but useless bow.

Montani invited them for a last lunch in Rome and then they packed their stuff and catched a regular flight back home to London. On those two and a half hours they mostly kept silent. Every now and then their arms met on the armrest between them and they smiled apologetically. They were DI Lynley and DS Havers again. Both captured in their safe but confining net of good friendship and it felt as if they had built up a fence on that thin line between them.

In reality Barbara longed to lay down her head on his shoulder when she took a nap. In reality Tommy would have loved to tip up that bloody armrest and pull her into a hug. Or hold hands. Or kiss her.

She could not get rid of his scent in her nose and he constantly was aware of her perfume.

Once more it seemed that they had taken the wrong exit and found themselves on one of those dead end roads. They were too close the entire time, it nearly hurts. So close all the time but nothing happened, frustratingly nothing.

Daylight is a devil.

* * *

><p>Late that afternoon they arrived in London and stopped over at the Met. Hillier already had left and after a short call they had an appointment with him on Monday at ten. Now it was Friday and until that appointment they had a free weekend ahead without being on call.<p>

Tommy brought her to her flat. He carried her bags to her doorstep. Barbara did not find the courage to ask him in so they stood in her door and just shook hands.

"It had been some strange days. I'm glad they're over." Tommy said. Inwardly he cursed for sounding as if he had not enjoyed the time in Rome. He had meant the Sheffield case and the hasty flight to Rome, then the awkward moments about this old case and the embarrassing discovery about those fan stories. And a bit he had meant the closeness to Barbara and that he had been such a coward to maintain this stupid barrier between them. He should have felt his way across it.

"Well, yes, in a way." Barbara answered. She scolded herself for cowardly not inviting him in. Yesterday evening had been the perfect evening but with a stupid end. She had thought he would do something, say something, show her somehow that he had enjoyed this evening as much as she had, but stupidly she had declined his invitation for a nightcap and thus spoiled the evening for herself. She should not have retreated into her room immediately. But she had.

They stared into each other's eyes. Tommy saw a longing in hers to do exactly what was written in those Rese and Liam stories. But she did not say a word. Barbara saw a yearning to prolong the time they spend together. She saw him bending a little forward. Her eyes widened and she squared her shoulders.

She held her breath and expected a kiss but then - nothing. Not even a peck on her cheek. He had misread her anticipation and thought of her movement to be a withdrawal.

"See you on Monday." he croaked and nearly fled back to his car.

In his back he heard her door loudly slam shut. He could not have known that inside Barbara slumped against the door and cursed.

* * *

><p>Tommy got into his car and banged his head against the steering wheel. After a few moments he drove to his own big empty home. Denton welcomed him and saw to his baggage.<p>

"Is that yours, Sir?" He held up a bag with lady's shoes.

Tommy sat on his sofa with an untouched whisky in front of him and a random news show on TV. He looked up and froze.

He remembered when Barbara had rummaged through her hand baggage in his car on search for her keys. She had put out several things before she found it on the bottom. She must have forgotten to put the bag with her new shoes back. An absent smile found its way into Tommy's face.

"Cinderella..." he whispered.

"Pardon, Sir?" Denton did not understand. Tommy blushed.

"Oh, umm, Bar... Miss Havers had left them in my car. You can put the bag onto the table in the hall. Thank you." His face returned to the TV. "I'll give them back on Monday."

This night's sleep was packed with disturbing dreams that left him highly confused and all the more lonely and frustrated on the next morning. Some things had been left undone during the previous days and they kept him busy. Saturday evening was occupied with a formal dinner with some businessmen. He had never found them so dull like he did now. And he never would understand how people could handle these matters in such an unemotional way, forgetting the fact that those horses are precious lovable animals. One or the other moment he had found his thoughts drifting back to a day he had spent with Barbara showing her his stables at Howenstow. She fiercely had objected to mount 'one of those huge beasts' but he had secretly observed her while she was tenderly stroking the head of one of his 'giants' and breathing calming words onto its nostrils when she had waited for him to return from a short exchange with the stable master.

_One day I'll place her on one of my horses and we'll go riding. I'd love to teach her._ He imagined her on a horse in the beautiful landscape around his Cornish home and suddenly his heart made a jump._ I love her._ His smile irritated and interrupted the speech of his business partner so Lynley quickly put himself back into the dull reality of this dinner.

On Sunday he shortly called his mother to tell her of the evening's result about the horses but other than that he had no more appointments so he mostly sat around, stared into nothing and got more bored, deeply frustrated and entirely lonely. He hated the fact that he had such deep feelings for Barbara. Feelings he should not have. Feelings she obviously did not reciprocate. Eventually he found himself in his study in front of the computer. The internet was tempting and the fan fiction site called for him. The Rese and Liam community showed another Get Together story.

Unnoticed by Tommy his mind played tricks on him and he only pictured Barbara while she was taking her birthday present. He felt embarrassed and spirited at the same time. And deeply ashamed of having those thoughts about his Sergeant once again.

He read Barbed Wire's comment: _congratulations! what an exciting ride! I like this adventurous side of her. HE could do with some of it too!_

_Is she referring to me?! No, this isn't possible! And shame on you, Tommy!  
><em>

Tommy knew about that TV show playing in Edinburgh, knew that there were some similarities to him and Barbara but he did never watch it regularly so in order to get to know more he read a bit about those two on the internet. He found out that Liam had been divorced at the end of series five and Rese had been held as a hostage once, which was in series three. This caused Tommy's thoughts to wander back in time to a case where the photograph of a young man with a thing for the divine proportion had led them to its solution just in time to react because back then Barbara had been held as a hostage too, just being back into service after she had been shot.

A thought struck him and suddenly he knew what he had to do. He got up and poured himself another whisky.

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>...<strong>


	12. Mokita

**Author's note: **Thank you so much! I really, really love reading your reviews. Are you getting desperate? :-D

Sorry, this chapter contains the longest Rese and Liam story. I could not find a way to reduce it more and I didn't want to. This time it also has its own fictional author's notes mentioned here. There is a twinned Barb and Tommy version of course and I would say _read that first _when you reach the **(X+)** ! ;-)

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

**Mokita** (Rese and Liam VI, 1119)****  
><strong>**

**.**

* * *

><p>On Sunday at about three o'clock in the afternoon the fan fiction site registered a new user.<p>

At about half past seven in the evening a new story appeared on the front page of the Rese and Liam community.

Every five minutes thereafter Tommy checked if Barbed Wire would leave a comment.

* * *

><p>Barbara had spent the entire weekend with house work, laundry, telly, a beer on Friday evening and many frustrating moments. She had strictly avoided her computer and had tried to sort her thoughts. She had needed to comb her feelings. Saturday morning she had spent one hour in her bathtub. Saturday afternoon, after a short walk to the store and a long stay on a bench in the nearby park, she had made some tea and had put a single scone on a plate and then she had sat there with the spoon in one hand the open jam pot in the other and a blank stare into infinity.<p>

Then she had hated herself for loving Tommy.

She had spent the evening on her sofa trying to forget. Sunday morning, at twelve o'clock Barbara cumbersomely peeled herself from the warmth of her bed. She felt herself blessed with the pains of a bad hangover. Though she had bought enough stuff for a proper breakfast she only swallowed a salty buttered toast and then tried to enjoy the sun shining into her small flat, staring out of her window. Eventually she put herself as far together to be able to take down her laundry and iron the few items that needed it.

In the evening she called for a pizza and then she finally turned on her computer to at least check her E-Mails and play some solitaire for distraction.

* * *

><p>It was shortly before nine o'clock in the night when she opened her browser and checked the R&amp;L community.<p>

A new story was published by a writer she had not seen before: _Gwithyas Kres_

_This is Cornish!_ it struck her.

The search engine she used immediately translated it into English: _police man_. There was someone who wanted to mock her, she thought, even if that someone does not know. Barbara swallowed and recognised the title of that story.

_**Mokita** - that which everybody knows but nobody speaks of_

With mouth agape she stared at the monitor. She hesitated. She covered her mouth in sheer disbelief. The word looked too familiar to her. No, she _knew_ it. It had been found written on the wall during a former case she had solved with Lynley. Nobody would know of it in the context of a case. It must have been sheer coincidence.

_...but then... that Cornish writer's name..._

Barbara still hesitated. Her finger hovered over the mouse button, the cursor already was on the link to the story.

_PC Garrett is in prison and hardly could have turned into a writer on this platform. _Is Nkata making his fun? But then again - how could he know of this platform? How would he know that she was reading there regularly so it would make sense to give himself such a mocking pen-name? _Tommy? No, that was highly unlikely. Or... no... was it possible?  
><em>

Barbara swallowed. She got up, poured herself a whisky, snuggled into an oversized furry jumper and took a deep breath. Ten times since her arrival at home she had started to light a cigarette but then did not. Two times she had lit one and stubbed it out after one or two drags. Now she finally lit one and smoked it half before she stubbed it out and sat down at her computer again. With a trembling hand she clicked on the story and read the author's notes.

* * *

><p><em><strong><strong>AN:** **This is a short story about a shift in their relationship. It's a hostage story. Imagine she had not only looked down the barrel of a rifle before but actually had been shot (but survived - thank goodness!). And not a year later she was on a major case again, still traumatised and being held as hostage again in a pub. Liam still was married at the time this story takes place but his wife already had left him. Something important is shifting._

* * *

><p>Barbara swallowed. <em>This cannot be happening!<em>

The description was that of their former case. _Oh, my...!_

Barbara scrolled down and started to read the story.

* * *

><p><strong>(X+)<strong>

* * *

><p><em><strong>Mokita<strong> - that which everybody knows but nobody speaks of_

* * *

><p><em>MacKenzie and Gibson were in a little village on Skye. The case seemed to be linked to a rape and suicide fifteen years ago after which the perpetrator mysteriously disappeared. The whole village seemed to know and hide something and Bobby Parson, the perpetrator's son, had tried to commit suicide.<br>_

_Gibson had driven to the pub to interview the landlady. Zapping through Bobby's digital photographs MacKenzie and the computer specialist saw PC Garner with a rifle on a picture with the victim._

_His heart stopped. _Therese is in danger!_  
><em>

_Deeply concerned Liam called her. "Where are you?"_

_"At the pub."_

_"Who's with you?"_

_Garner was not there._

_"Get out of there - now!"_

_"I don't understand, Sir..."_

_MacKenzie told her about the photograph. Garner meanwhile closed them in unnoticed._

_"How did he?" Gibson asked. Then she recognised Garner and swallowed audibly._

_"He's here." She disconnected._

_"Gibson? ...Therese!?" MacKenzie closed his eyes briefly._ Keep calm. Rescue routine step one...

_He turned to the specialist. "Call the armed sponsor unit! Get 'em to the King's Head _quickly_."_

* * *

><p><strong><em>.<em>**

* * *

><p><em>He drove to the scene like a horseman with a vengeance, the only thing on his mind was Therese in the pub. <em>I need to get her out of that horror! I need to be faster!

_The minutes stretched and it was the longest ride to a scene. MacKenzie arrived in the same second the cavalry did. All jumped out and hid behind the cars. Loud voices could be heard from inside. MacKenzie was sweating in fear._

It shouldn't be Therese in there!

_She had just returned from her recovery time and still was traumatised. Liam knew that she did not sleep - he had heard her pacing her room tonight and nearly had knocked to ask if he could do anything for her. Now it could be too late._

Don't even think it!

_MacKenzie briefed the Chief of the armed forces._

_"...he's taken hostages, including my sergeant."_

_"Is he armed?"_

_MacKenzie gave him a deprecating stare.  
><em>

_"She. No." _She hates weapons.

_For now they would stay in position. MacKenzie worked through rescue routines to stay calm and told himself that everything would be fine. He called her but Therese did not answer._

_Liam cursed. He hoped she would cope with-_

_A shot, screams, rumbling inside._

_Liam immediately jumped. He needed to get into the pub. He needed to be there with Therese. He needed to help her. He needed to-_

Stay rational!

_At the car in the front row he ducked and tried to call her again._

_Still no answer._

* * *

><p>Is she able to talk him down? What the hell are they doing in there? And why the hell do those armed blokes stay outside? Why don't they do something? We can't just watch that damn door!<p>

_The ever so calm society lad needed to do something, needed to move. He could not stay outside when Therese was inside, unarmed, unprotected, in danger._

_"I've gotta go in!"_

_"Absolutely no way! If anyone goes in it's us."_

_Reluctantly Liam accepted that. Minutes passed, more cavalry arrived, more fears built inside._

I can't lose her. She's my anchor. _He would tell her when this horror was over._

* * *

><p><strong><em>.<em>**

* * *

><p><em>Suddenly glass splintered, another shot was heard and instinctively Liam ran to the door. He did not think about the danger, his mind was filled with the wish to get Therese out of there.<em>

_He could hear her voice. _She is alive! _His heart made a joyful jump._

_The landlady stormed out of the pub screaming._

_"Get in! Help her!"_

_"Go!" The armed officers were put in motion._

_They all rushed in, weapons directed to PC Garner on the floor, a furious DS Gibson kneeling on top of him, grumbling, cursing and punching him as hard as she could.  
><em>

_For a second Liam rejoiced seeing her so wild and angry and so very alive. She still kicked Garner when Liam pulled her up. All the way out she even struggled against his firm grip when he dragged her away._

I need to get her away from that scene._  
><em>

_" 't's okay." he said. _She is alive. My tough Therese.

_Liam dragged and pushed Therese into broad daylight where she finally stopped her rage. His own trembling hand soothed her shoulders. She was visibly on the edge of coming apart. He did not care how the cavalry handled the situation inside. All that mattered there and then was in his arms - the vulnerable woman who had faced a rifle for the second time in too short a sequence. Liam pulled her against his chest and moved Therese away from the door. His chin rested on her head._

_She sobbed without tears. She fought for air and still processed the moment. Liam knew she _had _to cry. She could not bottle it up again. He was there to help her._

_With all her might Therese clung to his arms, wrenched his sleeve and tore at the cloth. Her eyes still stared into nothing. Relieved to have her out of there alive Liam caressed her head with his cheek and let a few tears fall. The officers around them did not care for the two detectives and they did not care for them. In fact Liam did not give a damn what anybody would have thought about the DI embracing his Sergeant in such a tender way._

_He tried to shush her gently and then she finally fell apart. Turning her face into his chest, she started to cry. Tears soaked his shirt but he did not care. Heavy sobs trembled through her little body which felt even smaller than ever._

_" 't's ok." he whispered once more when his hands drew soothing circles onto her back. While she cried he held her in a tender and warm embrace. This was not between two officers, this was between Rese and Liam._

_She probably had not felt the gentle kiss he placed on top of her head._

_And never would he tell her._

* * *

><p><em><strong>.<strong>_

* * *

><p><em>During this hostage-taking DI MacKenzie had not spent a single thought at his wife. His only thoughts had been with DS Gibson. Liam only felt that he could not bear to lose Therese.<em>

_After the funeral they finally exchanged a few words about how she had felt after her shot and how she felt now. Therese said that something had shifted. Nodding Liam told her that she appeared to be stronger._

_And she was. Leaving the graveyard she went ahead and he followed._

_Something deep inside Liam had shifted too. Only he had not yet realised it._

_And life went on like it always did._

* * *

><p><strong>(+X)<strong>

* * *

><p>Barbara kept staring onto the monitor with wide eyes for a few minutes and relived those moments of the hostage-taking. Tears ran down her face and fell onto her keyboard.<p>

_No, indeed, I haven't felt his kiss._

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>...<strong>

**A/N:** The next chapters will need some time - sorry.


	13. Chat

**Author's question: Do you like what you read? Why not give a feedback instead of just follow the stories? :-)**

* * *

><p><strong>Author's note: <strong>Sorry for the long pause but it's December, the month where one has so much social obligations...

Those reduced R&L-versions actually are just inserted as placeholders for the _real_ story (which is the twinned B&T-version in Get Together) and some of the readers read it simultaneously anyway. So I recommend that - if you haven't already - you read the B&T-version of **Mokita** before you continue here. It definitely has more feelings ;-)

* * *

><p>I hope this chapter 13 will be enjoyable and won't be too confusing to read because the partners of the later in this chapter following dialogue sit in different rooms. At least there is no time difference between them and they are only in different parts of London. Well, maybe you all know the difficulties of a...<p>

* * *

><p><strong><strong>.<strong>**

**Chat**  
><strong>**

**.**

* * *

><p>Barbara kept staring onto the monitor with wide eyes for a few minutes and relived those moments of the hostage-taking. Tears ran down her face and fell onto her keyboard.<p>

_No, indeed, I haven't felt his kiss._

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p>She could not really believe what she just had read. There was no mistake. This was a story written by Tommy. Nobody would have known of it with such... intimacy.<p>

Barbara blew her nose. Then she happily laughed and cried again.

_This is unbelievably... sweet. I... He... Unbelievable... _She read the last part once more.

_He definitely _knows_ I'm reading on fan fiction. _She remembered those embarrassing moments in Rome when she had thought that he knew that she knew and it had been clear that he had read some of those stories too.

_And without fail he knows that I'm Barbed Wire. _She blushed at the mere thought of him reading her comments and then laughed again in disbelief.

* * *

><p><em>Something has shifted.<br>_

* * *

><p><em>Oh, it hasn't only then but long before that pub drama... Gosh, he had kissed my head and I haven't felt it.<em>

Barbara stared at Tommy's pen name and curiously clicked on his profile.

* * *

><p><strong><em><em>Gwithyas Kres<br>__**_Joined today [Union Jack]_  
><em>Author has written 1 story for The Edinburgh Files.<br>_

* * *

><p>There was no text that might reveal more, there was one single story and - she hesitated before she clicked on the tab - there was just one favourite author.<p>

* * *

><p><em>Barbed Wire<em>

* * *

><p>Her nick name beamed from the monitor.<p>

_And I'm no author. I haven't written stories._

Her mind raced. She stared at her mobile lying next to the keyboard. She took it and put it back immediately. She could not quite possibly call him. _What should I tell him?!_ Then she got up and lit another cigarette that landed unsmoked in the ash tray. Instead she nervously bit her nails, standing in front of her little desk, staring at the monitor.

While she had read this story she did not touch her whisky. Now she downed it in one gulp.

"Oh, holy crap!" she shuddered in disgust. Barbara sat down again and clicked on the story to read it once more.

* * *

><p><em>Type your review on this chapter here...<em>

* * *

><p><em>That's the idea!<em> Bravely she clicked on the empty box under the story.

_[what a sweet story. needed tissues]_

She deleted the text. _No, that's too unpersonal._

_[welcome on board. good first one. thanks for sharing. will there be a sequel?]_

Barbara also deleted this text, got up again and poured herself another whisky. Untouched she left it on her desk and searched for the pack of cigarettes that was on the sofa where she had thrown it. Barbara slumped down there. While she played with the cigarette packet she remembered the multiple sweet moments in Rome when Tommy had stopped her from smoking. She was deeply touched by his concern, still affected by the sweetness he had shown back then. The feeling of the touch of his fingers when he had withdrawn one from her hand came back by the mere thought of it.

_He doesn't like it and he's right. I should stop it. Now._

Barbara went into the kitchen before she returned at her desk. Her cigarettes had vanished in the rubbish bin.

_When I'm tasting of cigarette smoke he probably would not like to kiss-_

Unable to finish this thought she coul feel her heart thumping in her chest. She scolded herself for thinking of such things. This was too far. _Oh, Barbara - 'more than a colleague' does not automatically mean lover or something..._

She fell down on her chair. _Oh, gosh, I'm completely rattled.  
><em>

For a while again she kept on staring at her monitor without really looking at it.

_My comment has to be something with which I could show him that it's me and that I know, that he's him. But if he's not? Oh, bloody... for sure it's Tommy - who else would have known of the pub drama? The Chief of the armed forces?  
><em>

Then she typed her longest review ever:

* * *

><p><em>very lively written, like you've been there. haven't recognised I was crying while reading. need some tissues now *sob*<em>  
><em>sweet dramatic "first kiss" - though she actually hadn't felt it. SHE never will get to know of his feelings when HE never would act. and knowing her, I believe she would never dare to make the first step. <em>  
><em>yeah, life goes on. it always does. probably years will pass - if not eternity - before they solve their own personal case. hope there will be a sequel to this and you will let them solve that thing between them QUICKER than eternity is over.<em>  
><em>welcome to the community. big heartfelt THANKS for sharing your thoughts!<em>

* * *

><p>She had written all there was to say to let him know. Now it was his turn. Trembling she got up and went to curl up into a ball on her sofa.<p>

_I'll give him five minutes. Hell, I could kill for a cigarette now..._

To distract herself she went back to read the story once again.

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p>Meanwhile in a more noble city district of London Tommy read the news on some online paper and very <em>teenagerish<em> clicked every five minutes on his story to check the reviews. A few people had given their positive reviews before he saw that the author named Barbed Wire had written a very long comment.

Suddenly (and I'd say without any cause) Tommy doubted if he had been clear enough or if Barbed Wire really was Barbara.

_But then again - she normally leaves distinctively shorter comments. But now - how could I answer?_

He logged out and left a cowardly guest review under the disguise of _T_:

* * *

><p><em>He should have told her of his feelings during that drama. Not right then but there were moments when they could have talked about their personal things. Generally he should speak with her about those matters more often anyway.<em>

* * *

><p>The second he had sent the quasi anonymus comment he had decided to thank her personally for her review in a PM. He could not try to 'communicate' with her via such a 'private' platform like public comments on the world wide web. Maybe she won't read his comment at all or probably she would never connect it with him. He needed to be a bit more distinct.<p>

* * *

><p><em>Hello Barb.<em> (Tommy chuckled at that. Normally just Winston dared to call her Barb.)  
><em>Thanks for your review, I'm glad you enjoyed the story and it was not too lively in all its drama.<em>  
><em>Cheers - the Cornish Policeman<em>

* * *

><p>Tommy leaned back in his soft chair and waited a few seconds before he refreshed his Inbox. Nothing.<p>

_For heaven's sake, Tommy! Give her at least some minutes._ He got up and stared into the beautifully groomed garden, picturing himself and Barbara there, kissing and-

He shook his head. He needed to stay somewhat rational. They were good friends and probably he was the only one of them who had fallen in love with the other. And even if not - to think of something like that, to think of a shared future would definitely be a bit too soon. Child's laughter stole itself into his imaginary ear.

_Gods, I'm mad..._

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p>When she had received and read his personal message Barbara answered immediately. She loved the Cornish language since she had heard it for the first time so she had chosen to greet him that way. Luckily she had a Cornish-English dictionary. <em>What's Cornish for 'Hello you!' ...?<em>

* * *

><p><em>Hou sos!<em>  
><em>Well, thanks for sharing, I'm very glad you've written it. And I don't mind that it was in fact VERY lively. It actually felt like being there.<em>  
><em>It's so sad that she hadn't felt that kiss but I think it was because she was a bit preoccupied with that hostage thing.<em>  
><em>Honestly - have you just called me Barb?!<em>

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><em>Sorry, no offence, just the short version of your name - a<em>_nd doesn't Barbed Wire sound a bit... too defensive? Too spiky? Too fending?_  
><em>Oh, yes, a nasty time that was. Probably he also was a bit preoccupied with his leaving wife those days so he hadn't recognised what he had felt for her, that he was slowly falling in love with his sergeant. Deep down in her mind his wife probably had seen it coming.<em>

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p>Barbara's heart made a jump. Nervously giggling she looked out of her window into the saddening darkness of the concreted back yard. Once more she frowned happily grinning. Disbelief and hope, anxiousness and anticipation alternated in her belly, her head and in her heart. Her mind constantly repeated the most disturbing sentence of his PM:<p>

* * *

><p><em>...he was slowly falling in love with his sergeant...<em>

* * *

><p>She had hoped it. She had wished for it. And now that she saw it in black and white she could not believe it.<p>

_This is so unreal. I'm writing PMs with Tommy. And what sort of! Oh, bloody, and I still can't be totally sure that it's him. Oh, of course I am. It's the Mokita story!_

Once more she bit her nails brooding about how this could, how this should, no - how this will go on. When she would answer now, everything would become more personal or clearly revealing who's behind their pen names, uncover the truth, which was something she not yet dared to. The possibility, as minor or unlikely as it might be, that it's not Tommy, was slightly invigorating. The game around the truth to be written or said was funny, stimulating. That little moment of uncertainty was thrilling like in teenage days. Barbara did not answer but kept staring at those words.

* * *

><p><em>...he was slowly falling in love with his sergeant...<em>

* * *

><p>Overpowered by her emotions she let her tears run for a while and did not know what to do. She did not know what to feel. Barbara just wanted to jump in her car, drive to his Lordship and face him. Face the facts, sort it out, work through it...<p>

_Forget it..._

On the other hand all her fears and concerns still were blocking her mind and her actions and she would have loved to hide herself in her bed under the duvet. Another wet tissue had landed in the bin under her desk when her mobile buzzed with a text message.

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p>Tommy had waited impatiently for an answer. He had feared that he had been too straightforward, thus somehow might have frightened Barbara somehow, then this feeling turned and he was concerned that she would not reciprocate his feelings. He had decided to let this fan fiction site be what it was (a <em>fiction<em> site) and bravely call her. Weighing his mobile in his hand for a few more moments he cowardly just had written a text message:

* * *

><p><em><em>Don't forget: Mon, 10 am, Hillier's office. <em>  
>And no more reading in bed, Barb.<em>  
><em>Nos dha! Tommy<em>

* * *

><p>Her answer reached him a few seconds later.<p>

* * *

><p><em>Yes, Sir, Mr. Policeman!<em>  
><em>I'll behave!<em>  
><em>Sweet dreams! B.<em>

* * *

><p>First the dot had been an x but Barbara had changed it before she had sent the message. She was amazed about herself that she had sent it anyway.<p>

* * *

><p>This was a sweet text and assured him that she knew that he knew that they know. Her dear wish for him to have sweet dreams was enormously elating. With the most relieved contentment and the most jubilant grin on his lips Tommy went to bed at about midnight.<p>

Tomorrow will be the most perfect day in his life. He knew it.

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>...<strong>


	14. Monday, Monday

**Author's notes: **Hell, it suddenly is icy cold here. Hard to keep Summer still in mind in that story. I even tend to picture Cat's Alpenfest in snow *wraps herself in a warm rug*

Thanks for all your lovely warming reviews so far. Here's another chapter.

Good morning everybody. The weekend is over and now it's...

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

**Monday, Monday**

**.**

* * *

><p>Barbara had gone to bed with the most happy smile and the most joyful feeling in her belly she had had for years, but still accompanied by a small fear how on earth all this will develop. Her inner turbulence had been so strong that she had fallen asleep only late in the morning. Her alarm clock had pulled her out of her deep dreams almost too late. After a quick shower and a quicker breakfast she searched for her new shoes. It was an unusual warm day and the light Italian leatherware would be suitable. She could not find them so she sped to her car and drove to the Met in her usual sneakers.<p>

When she arrived at her desk a little too late to be on time for the appointment with Hillier she found a folded card on it and a grinning Nkata, whispering behind his monitor with the DCs Johnson and Brijesh.

On the card was the picture of an enormous bouquet of red roses. Barbara swallowed and hesitantly read what was written on the inside.

* * *

><p><em>Thanks for the intangibly wonderful time. LiamX<em>

* * *

><p>After her heart stopped and came into gear again Barbara sharply looked up at the three cheeky colleagues. <em>They've read it.<em> "Oh, fuck..." she cursed under her breath.

She, and hopefully she alone, knew that it was from Tommy and not from a bloke named 'Liam'. Luckily her colleagues acted like they did not know and wound her up.

"Hey, Barbie, you're quite late, huh? Had a nice week... end?" Winston laughed. Secretly he had checked it today in the personnel files - DI Lynley's second (he had four) name was William. Additionally this certain DI Lynley, eighth Earl of Asherton, had seemed to be in a very special happy mood this morning. Winston had not seen him putting the card on the table but he put one and one together and was sure that there had happened something between them _finally_. Winston had made up his mind and let the boys think otherwise. It would give his dear superiors more time to work things out. This was everything but an easy relationship between them, he thought.

"And a long one..." Brijesh giggled.

"New lover, eh?" Johnson chuckled.

"Shut up, you nitwits." Barbara grumbled. " 'n' get back at work."

In a vast hurry she rushed up the stairs to Hillier's office.

* * *

><p>It was just two minutes after ten when she knocked at his open door and entered.<p>

" 'morn', Sir." she nodded at him. DI Lynley earned a quick glance and a shy smile. "Sir."

Tommy's heart made a giant leap. He could swear he had seen her love for him in this short look and if not such then there was definitely pure joy to see him. There will be something very special to talk about after this debriefing with Hillier.

"Brilliant, DS Havers made it only two minutes late." the Chief Super ironised while he went to his coffee brewer.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but Nkata detained me at my desk." Her eyes met Tommy's briefly to let him know she had read his card. Her mouth formed a thank you.  
>" 'n' there was a traffic jam after a heavy accident on the Upper St. Martin's Lane, at the Cranbourn Street junction, so I had to make a detour. And I had been already late because I couldn't find my shoes. It's-"<p>

Two voices interrupted her. The Chief Super told her that if she wouldn't have had her usual cigarette in the car park then she would have made it in time. But the lower voice from the man on the chair next to her drowned him out in fact.

"You've lost them in my coach, Cinderella." Barbara stared at Tommy and turned pink at the sight of such an amused and still tender affection in his eyes.

More to Tommy than as an answer to Hillier's statement Barbara said that she had quit smoking and did not delay her arrival here with a quick smoke in the car park. A small proud smile appeared on Tommy's lips. He understood that she had done it for him.

_I want that bloody debriefing to be over as soon as possible._ Barbara thought while their eyes locked.

_We have to talk. _Tommy thought._ We _so_ have to talk._

Hillier seemed (or played) oblivious to the sudden electrical tension in the room and cleared his throat.

"Ah, that's fine, Havers. Good, good. Now, come on, can we start now?"

* * *

><p>The debriefing had been as unpleasant as Barbara had foreseen it. Hillier had received the reports and had read them early this morning and now had asked some inconvenient questions about them but knowing that this would be the last time this whole affair would be brushed Lynley and Havers heroically endured it.<p>

Afterwards Barbara had been dismissed alone because the Chief Super had to have another private conversation with the Inspector. She had slowly gone back to her desk where she went through all those undone things that had summed up during the last two weeks they had been away. Winston dearly hoped that the two DCs would bugger off so he could have a personal interrogation with Barbara about the time in Rome but they busied themselves at the desk next to him so he only could exchange a few words with her. He was entirely curious about the details.

When Tommy finally came down he loitered in the open space office, searching for an excuse to speak with Barbara. Seeing that they won't be alone he finally vanished in his office. First he had to have his work done, which would be quick so he thought, then he would ask her for lunch.

He should have been distinctively quicker because due to the fact Nkata had asked her first, he had to share Barbara's presence with the DC. It really was awkward. The only thing Tommy and Barbara wanted to have was a small moment alone so they could get that thing between them cleared. They needed to speak about Rome, about them, about the previous evening's chat, about the buds of love they recently had discovered under a layer of old brown autumn leaves their lives were covered with. The only thing Winston wanted was to be somewhere else. Lynley and Havers always had been odd but the tension now was unbearable. It was blindingly obvious that something had happened between them that was not yet solved properly.

Unfortunately Lynley received a call from his mother about some business with the stables of his manor so he excused himself from the lunchtable and promised to be back in the afternoon. Even more unfortunately that did not happen. Barbara finished her work before he had returned. She had extended the time as far as possible but could not find more excuses or more unimportant little things to be done so she drove home. For a short while she only pitied herself. It had taken a little for her to realise that this was futile but then she fished her mobile out of her bag and typed a text message:

_[ Still busy with the horses? ]_

Tommy thought she must be able to hear his sigh on the other side of London when he answered.

_[ Unfortunately yes. Have a word later? ]_

Barbara grinned and had a very good idea.

_[ Absolutely! Today dinner at 8. Dress nicely. I'll pick you up. Bx ]_

She did not need to wait long for his answer.

_[ Of course I will pay! ]_

Barbara chuckled. _I should call him. Honestly, we're not some silly teenagers. _

But that giddy feeling, this happy buzzing in her belly was far too pleasing so she answered with another text.

_[ No objections this time, you stubborn rich inspector ]_

Tommy grinned. _If an argument about who pays would lead to where it had in the story... Wow..._

He typed: [_ What a pity ]_

All alone, sitting on her sofa Barbara laughed remembering the argument of the Rese and Liam Birthday story and where the objections of the protagonist had led.

[ _Macho! ]_ she answered with a light tingling in her belly. _Maybe it will lead us to..._

_[ Oh yes, please show me more of your straightforward side ] _First Tommy was shocked about himself but then he grinned.

This text message made her blush deeply. Obviously he had that same story in mind.

_[ Cheeky you! I'll catch you at 7:30 sharp ]_

_[ Yes Ma'am! ]_

* * *

><p>The rest of the afternoon she rummaged through her wardrobe trying to find out what she should wear in the evening and <em>of course<em> it was not 7:30 sharp when she finally arrived at his doorstep.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>...<p> 


	15. Appetiser

**Author's notes: **The following two chapters are a bit shorter. Sorry for that. But I think they needed to be split up.

Well, then - before dinner we'll have a little...

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

**Appetiser**

**.**

* * *

><p>First Barbara had stood totally helpless in front of the open wardrobe. Dinner at the chosen restaurant alone, for her standards a very elegant restaurant, additionally with the man she had admitted to herself she had fallen in love with would be some occasion she was absolutely not used to.<p>

"What the bloody hell..." _...I really should stop cursin'!_ "What on earth should I wear?!"

Hours had gone by with her changing clothes over and over again before she had made a mess out of her flat but finally had found out what to wear.

Being short of really fine evening attire Barbara had opted for the anthracite-coloured suit she used to wear for court appearances (that which had all its buttons below her breast and made a nice cleavage that she usually covered with a simple high-necked white blouse) and her only matching court shoes. To make it a little bit more elegant she had put on her pearls, the only valuable thing she had in herited from her mother, and to make it a little bit sexier - she had chuckled at that thought but also blushed about her own bravery - she had chosen her plain black satin blouse with a low neckline and collars that were as wide as the lapels of her jacket. She had worn it for one single occasion and that was a theme party years ago. It did not suit any occasion and so she nearly had forgotten that she had it but in this combination it did not look as cheap as it actually had been. Barbara had tried on various blouses and tops but finally felt brave enough to wear this one tonight.

_Well, I'm on a mission tonight._ she thought nervously laughing in front of her mirror where she examined the results of the afternoon.

The dark colors stood in total contrast to her only slightly bronzed skin and her reddishly shimmering hair, intensified and lightened by the mediterranean sun during her stay in Rome. Finally she had twirled her usual ponytail into some simple bun, had decided on just a little make-up and then hopped into her car before she could think otherwise.

* * *

><p>The afternoon had gone by slowly for Tommy. After the call with his mother he had called and met two other businessmen, then received the text messages from Barbara and afterwards had talked with his sister. Casually he had mentioned that he would have dinner with her tonight. Judith had commented it with a meaningful "Oh, really?!" and a long pause in which Tommy had been forced to explain something.<p>

"We... I have... Well, it's..." He moaned in frustration.

"Have you told her, Tommy?"

"Not yet. I- " Then he had recognised what his sister had implied and what he had confirmed unnoticed. "Judith! We're not... I can't... She... Oh, crap. I don't know how, Judith!"

"Just tell her. If I'm not totally off the mark she had fancied you forever and what I've learned when she attended my birthday party this year she meanwhile has been helplessly fallen for you."

If until now he had not yet felt absolutely sure that this time it was different - now the straight words from his sister had brought the last drop of certainty into his mind. Tommy had quickly finished his horse trading businesses and then had tried to figure out what he should wear tonight.

_Not too elegant to scare her away immediately but also not just a suit... _His wardrobe was stuffed with something for every occasion but he definitely had not needed as long as Barbara to figure out what to wear.

* * *

><p>When Tommy opened the door shortly after seven thirty, already wearing his dark evening suit, white shirt and dark green tie, in which he had waited since a quarter past seven strolling around in his lounge, ready to leave immediately, Barbara was entirely nervous. The sight of him in evening clothes was of no great help in that matter. She always had liked him in his fine cloth, she never would have admitted it but he was sexy and the little traces of his age only supported that. Well, in fact recently she <em>did<em> admit it, if only for herself.

And now she was going to have dinner with him. She already looked forward to him putting on his reading glasses for studying the menu.

_When he fix me again over the rim of his glasses, I swear, I'm going to swoon!_

Barbara cleared her throat. _How could he always look so sure about everything?_

Tommy's stare told her that she had put on the right things. He openly feasted on her. His eyes went down to her toes and back up, lingering a while on her cleavage until his eyes met hers again. He swallowed. Actually he knew that suit, he had seen Barbara wearing it at court. But something he was not prepared for was her wearing it with such a revealing blouse and such simple elegant necklace. He even had not known that she owned something like that. And her hair was pinned up in a sweet messy bun that looked like it had been much more tight when she had made it.

_Holy crap, this woman is unbelievably... surprising... Magical Lady..._

Stepping a bit forward he took her hand and kissed it softly. Her swooning was definitely not too far away.

"You look wonderful tonight, Barbara." he whispered and made another step towards her. Barbara could see in his eyes that he was about to kiss her without further ado and suddenly her heart beat faster.

"Sir, I am utterly sorry to disturb you..." Denton could be heard from the corridor and he carried on with a question Barbara did not want to hear nor would she like to meet with the butler right now so she turned on her heels and quickly returned to her car, leaving Tommy to deal with it on his own. She frowned and secretly wished to kill Denton for his untimely interruption, but the pleasantly nervous tension she had felt the entire day, since yesterday evening in fact, when she had read his PM on fan fiction, did not leave her stomach which made the disturbance slightly easier to bear.

* * *

><p>Besides the interruption only prolonged the thrill of anticipation and stalled the inevitable.<p>

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>...<p> 


	16. The Inevitable

**Author just grins. **Here comes...**  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

**The Inevitable  
><strong>

**.**

* * *

><p>Barbara waited leaning at her car with crossed legs and crossed arms but before Tommy reached her she climbed in because she could not stand his hungry eyes anymore. She never would have thought that she would be able to have such an impact on any man and suddenly knew for sure where this evening was inevitably heading.<p>

Secretly she had wanted this for years and now she was very sure he wanted it too. She welcomed him with a mischievous smile and an involuntarily flirtatious look when he got into the car. Then she started the engine.

"Let's go!" she said.

_She's already seducing me. I wonder if she knows what she's doing..._

The ride to the restaurant where Barbara had made a reservation would be a short one and they did not need to make much conversation. They would have to talk enough over dinner.

_With soft music and candle light..._ She told him where they were heading and made the joke that it might not be the Savoy but he hopefully had his golden credit card with him.

"Because I do not intend to exercise restraint." _Oh no, how does that sound?! As if I'm going to...  
><em>

"I hope so." Tommy smirked and did not mean having the card in his wallet. He had kept staring at her the whole ride until now. Barbara blushed and, since the traffic light ahead went red, stopped the car. She kicked the brake pedal a bit heavier than she had intended to or was necessary and the car came to an abrupt halt.

"Ooops. Sorry." Barbara was extremely nervous. Her emotions alternated between apprehension and a certainty she did not know where it came from.

* * *

><p>Tommy still smiled and turned his eyes away from her. Then he pointed with his chin up to a little black box next to the red traffic light and started to grin broadly.<p>

"We are monitored."

His eyes caught hers. They knew that their thoughts were directed to the same and went back to a sweet line in one of the Edinburgh Files fan fictions. Sparks of desire were mirrored in their eyes and Barbara wished they would not be sitting in a car. A moonlit bench in the park would be the perfect location for such a moment but Tommy did not care about the slightly uncomfortable surroundings. He loosened his seat belt and scooted over to Barbara. The distance between the seats in her Mini was short and quickly he had put his hand on her upper arm as if to keep her from turning away. He was going to kiss her at the red light. Nothing would keep him away from that. Whatever disturbance might happen now he would not give a damn. Fortunately there was no other car behind them but he would not have cared anyway.

_Now!_

"Let's give them a show." Tommy hoarsely said. Out of the corner of her eye Barbara could see the lights switch to green but Tommy could not have been stopped. He had seen the green lights too but the green of her eyes mesmerised his whole being and focussed him on her. His face was only three inches away from hers.

"Sir, it-"

* * *

><p><em>It must have been the hottest kiss the impersonal traffic surveillance camera ever had witnessed.<em>

* * *

><p>It started with just a soft lingering contact that made her eyes go shut, a contact Barbara had waited for years to happen, a contact Tommy had in mind to make for a nearly equally long time. He simply pressed his warm lips softly against hers and waited for a response. Her hand involuntarily went to his chest and she tentatively answered his kiss.<p>

She had waited for this moment for aeons and now that it actually happened she nearly exploded in joy and a sweet desire for more. Barbara moved closer and felt his arm slide across her chest down to her waist. She could feel him nibbling and softly tugging at her lower lip. Her eyes were firmly closed. Her lips already opened to him with an innocent invitation before he slowly entered her mouth. A little sigh escaped her while his tongue slowly twisted around hers. Her body moved even closer in his direction, her hand on his chest went to the lapel of his jacket and tugged at it and with his hand on her waist he pulled her as close as her seat belt allowed. The fingers of their hands between them were laced and laid on the handbrake. The pressure they both applied there was a pure outlet of lustful energy.

When they eventually parted - just an inch - it was only for the need to breathe.

"You were saying?" he asked slightly panting and touched her lips again without opening his eyes. "Mmmmh." he appreciatively moaned. This was the best kissing in all his life and he wished it never would end. He could not care less for dinner. Barbara did not dare to open her eyes, because she feared that she could not stand the view and would finally melt. The heat in her face and in her whole body was no heat from embarrassment it was a heat of lust.

"I was saying that it's not very rom-mmmmh" His kiss interrupted her once more. "...not romantic to share the first kiss-" She still had her hand on his chest and meanwhile crumpled his shirt when they shared a fourth kiss. It left her totally out of breath when she finally was able to finish her sentence. "...in a car at a red traffic light."

Indeed the lights already had turned back to red.

"I have to object!" he whispered. Their lips brushed again. "This is _extraordinarily_ romantic."

Then the little sweet kisses turned into another hot impact. Her hand slid into his nape and his fingers on her waist wandered down to her hip. She felt a light pleasant traction in her belly and the desire of the wet dance their tongues practised was mirrored in the movements their hips made into the direction of each other again. Unfortunately they had to breathe at some point. Barbara heard a small sigh of pleasure escape her lips.

"Bloody hell, Tommy..." she panted with still closed eyes. This kiss was far more intense than she ever had imagined. Her laughs were a bit nervous.

"Oh, Barbara, I could not imagine my first kiss with you being any different and I could continue until-"

Another feathery kiss was interrupted by their simultaneously buzzing mobiles.

With both being on call this could only mean that there was a case of emergency. His lips still hovering over hers Tommy made a nasty curse.

"Don't curse." she whispered smiling and gently bumped her forehead against his while he already searched for his phone. "That's _my_ job." Then softly pushing him away Barbara took a deep breath to regain a proper voice. Her hands still trembled.

"Yes? Havers!?" She answered her phone with a slightly pitching voice.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>...<p> 


	17. Crime Scene

**Author's notes: **Ah, well, there's a title I own. You should have known that I couldn't let them simply drive to a restaurant to have a romantic candlelight dinner. Or could I? No. The life of a policeman is one of interruptions and disturbances. We all know it, Tommy knows it, Barbara knows it, even Helen had learned to know it...

So now I'd like to welcome you to the magnificent ;-) and wonderfully romantic...

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

**Crime Scene  
><strong>

**.**

* * *

><p>Both were on call but the incident that brought them back into reality actually was a case DI O'Reilly originally had been assigned to. Unfortunately O'Reilly, already acting momentarily without his usual Sergeant, had called in sick this afternoon for a few days so Winston Nkata and the desk sergeant called the next in line and that happened to be DI Lynley and DS Havers. Winston had insisted that they should be called as a team and not only the DI. Never would he dare to exclude Barbara. At least now when he thought, no, he <em>knew<em> that something _very serious_ was happening between them. He had always been a shipper of those two and never became tired of subtly pushing them into each other's direction. It had been hard work. Seeing both getting close now was simply great.

Winston did not know what he had interrupted in Barbara's car but a second body was found which turned out to be the main suspect O'Reilly had pictured.

After Barbara and Tommy had finished their calls they chuckled a bit nervous, a bit embarrassed by what had happened a minute ago, but indeed very content with the turn of events. He had not let go of her hand on the handbrake and now gently squeezed it.

"Something has shifted, Sir." Barbara sheepishly smiled. _I love you. _She felt as if these words were encarved on her forehead.

"Oh, yes, yes indeed it has. And I must say that I do appreciate it."

The desireful look accompanied with a smirk he gave her told her what other kind of shifting he also had meant and her sudden interest in the street ahead told him in return that she had understood him very well. In fact something equal had happened to her.

"We need to have a word about us later, don't we?" _We should drive home and have all but a word..._

"Well, yes, I'd rather let you drive me to that restaurant and I think a glass of champagne-"

"Champagne? Sir, we're on call, well, now on duty. We should better not-"

"We _will_ have one glass of champagne tonight. I want to celebrate this wonderful turn of events with you, Barbara. And a glass of champagne will be the best start of both dinner and conversation. Now let's get to that damn scene and have it done there quickly." Tommy grumbled. _I'm getting entirely impatient._

Then someone abruptly pulled the driver side door open and very impatiently cursed them for blocking the traffic. Barbara wordlessly held her open hand at Tommy who already had found the removable emergency lights in the glove box and gave it to her.

"I'm sorry for your inconvenience, Sir, ..." Barbara said to the man as polite as possible with the most serious expression she could muster and put the emergency lights onto the car roof. "...but we're police in action. Please step back from the car, we're on a mission, thank you."

She closed her door and sped away from the man.

* * *

><p>"Police in action?! ...on a mission?!" Tommy asked with an amusedly raised eyebrow and a hidden chuckle.<p>

"Well, we _were_... umm... _are_ in action, aren't we?" Barbara was glad she had to keep her eyes on the road.

_Oh, yes, Barbara, and we really _are_ on a mission._

* * *

><p>After a very fast ride to the crime scene Barbara stopped at the kerb, pulled the handbrake and turned off the engine. Tommy sighed. Neither of them wanted to get out of the car.<p>

"I'd prefer having dinner with you now." Tommy squeezed her hand again when Barbara nodded. "Well, that's the enthralling wonderful life of a policeman..." he sighed.

His frown was soothed by the sweet understanding smile Barbara gave him. She knew what that life was - she led quite a similar one. When on call one is always about to be summoned somewhere else, no matter what had been scheduled in private life, not even romance was safe of interruptions. Or serious conversations how to live a marriage, Tommy remembered.

"And of a police_woman_, Sir. I do know the 'comforts' of our job. We have to stall our private word - and the glass of champagne - for a little while as long as we're back in business out there. At least we're here _together_, aren't we." After a short pause she added such a tender "Tommy..." that made his heart burst with happiness and deep love for that incredible woman in the seat next to him, in the middle of nowhere, about to examine a crime scene, on her way to face death and the horrorful abyss of humanity, the ugly face of murder, understanding that his job - well, hers too - sometimes thwarted private life's plans. He dearly hoped and suggested aloud that they would try to keep their appearance at the scene as short as necessary so hopefully they could still make it to the restaurant in time and have dinner. As he was still holding her hand he now raised it gently to his lips and gave her a deep promising look that suddenly went honest.

_'Just tell her.'_ his sister had said. Tommy had had her words in mind the entire afternoon and was sick of those damn interruptions. There might never come the proper opportunity with all of their job's interferences. And those could be worse than one could imagine so he needed to just tell her.

_Right now. Right here._

"Barbara, I love you." Her eyes widened, her heart made a jump and she had to swallow but she did not turn her eyes away from his. This was an unexpected declaration. It was not the fact that he did love her but the moment and the location he had said it were quite unromantic.

_But then again, at the moment this isn't a romantic evening at all and who knows when we have time again to speak in private. After all I had expected him to love me._ She sighed too.

"I know, Tommy. I know... I..." Tommy softly put his fingertips on her cheek and gently stroked her lips with his thumb. He just wanted to kiss her again, _right now_, _right here_, but with all the officers around and the bright light that was put on to illuminate the crime scene he did not dare to. His eyes were as open and honest as they could be and Barbara looked into his very soul only to find nothing but love.

She only whispered when she went on speaking. "I love you too."

If their heartbeats were the drums of the Scots Guards those men would stand ready for battle at her car in an instant. Instead a simple uniformed constable of the Metropolitan Police Service knocked at the window on the passenger side and mercilessly dragged them out of their happy little universe. They quickly parted, got out of the car and followed him to some bushes behind the crash barrier.

"Ma'am, you won't get down there with those pretty shoes. When you haven't got some Wellies you'd better stay here."

She had not. Who needed Wellies when the destination was an elegant dinner?

* * *

><p>DI Lynley slid more than he climbed down the steep slippery scarp where DC Nkata already was waiting.<p>

" 'ev'nin', Sir. Sorry for the inconvenience. Where's Barbara? I thought she'd come here too?!"

"She is. She had to wait up there." Lynley answered. Then he grinned up the scarp to the silhouette with the illuminating lights from behind her. "Cinderella wears her little glass slippers."

While he already had turned around back to the crime scene Winston secretly chuckled about Lynley's choice of words. En passant Lynley explained that they had been on their way to have dinner when they were called.

The smug grin in Winston's face was undeniable when he sharply eyed his boss and asked a meaningful "Oh?!" and Lynley, with a broad smile in his face but decidedly not looking at his Constable but at the body on the floor in front of them, answered with an even more meaningful "Oh, hell, yes!"

"For heaven's sake, 't was time, Sir." Nkata nodded appreciative and then both men turned to the body at hand and were fully back in business.

* * *

><p>It was very clear that the dead man in front of the officers had been killed somewhere else and just been thrown down this scarp to get rid of it. SOCO already was finishing its work and tomorrow by daylight some officers would scan the near area if there would be some more hints but nobody expected it. The DI declared their work there to be done and dismissed Nkata to overlook that the boys cordon off the area properly.<p>

"Good evening, Sir." Winston smirked.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>...<p> 


	18. Big Ben

**Author's notes: **Ah, well, sorry for the delay but this year's December is stuffed with events (and work). Here's the next chapter. I hope I'm able to finish this story in 2014 ;-)

I think now most of the readers have turned hungry with the dinner still not on the table. Am I right?

*chuckles*

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

**Big Ben  
><strong>

**.**

* * *

><p>"Winston knows it." Tommy got back into the car where Barbara already was seated. The small file he got from Winston was carelessly threwn onto the back seat. There was nothing more to be done at the crime scene for them so they could try to go on with their private life. If Barbara would drive fast there still was enough time for their so much wanted candlelight dinner.<p>

"Oh..." Barbara meaningfully answered and turned on the engine. While they drove on the ring road to get to the restaurant as soon as possible to give the dinner a second try they talked about the circumstances of this case and of how they would continue their work at the Met.

"Now that we are..." Barbara went silent.

"...together?" Tommy finished her sentence. Both let the sound of that little word linger a while in the small space of her car. Though they already had declared their love for each other it still seemed unfamiliar.

"M-hm." Barbara nodded and bit her lower lip. She smiled slightly uncertain. It was a strange feeling. Years of years she had waited for something like this to happen and now that it just _had_ happened they were immediately engrossed in another case which might turn out to be their last case as a team.

They were sure they would be seperated as soon as they would admit publicly that their private relationship had become a close one. Maybe they both, or at least Barbara, would be promoted and they could find a way to go on working together somehow.

When they were halfway there on the way to the restaurant, Lynley's phone buzzed.

* * *

><p>"I'll kill that thing. Yes, Lynley?!"<p>

Stuart Lafferty called to tell him - as the leading DI - of an important discovery in the first body, something he had to show them immediately because it was melting or somehow disappearing. He made it urgent.

"We're on our way, Lafferty." Lynley disconnected and moaned in frustration. "I'm afraid there shouldn't be a romantic dinner for us tonight. Please drive to the morgue. Lafferty needs us there immediately to check on something. Or witness it. I didn't understand his medical Chinese."

"Bullshit!" Barbara turned at the next junction and drove to the Met. "If it's not something absolutely important I'm going to put Lafferty into one of his fridges." she grunted.

"At least we're driving there together." Tommy smiled.

"Oh, shut- umm... Sorry, Sir." Barbara cleared her throat.

When Tommy started to laugh she glared at him. "Don't mock me, Tommy!"

"I'm sorry, Barbara. But actually it's right - we're doing this together. Actually I've _always_ loved to work with you, you know. Well, after a short while of adjusting to your crazy way of thinking that is."

"You are the one with the crazy mind, Sir."

"And here we have the reason for our high solving rate - your mind fits mine."

"We're totally _different_, Tommy."

"That's the secret! Your mind and mine are matching contraries."

He gave her a quick kiss on her cheek before he got off the car. Barbara just shook her head and followed.

* * *

><p>"Tommy?" Barbara was barely audible when she stopped him before they went through the door into the building where the morgue was in the basement. Tommy turned and thus suddenly being very close to her bent down in order to kiss her but she made a step backwards.<p>

"No."

"What?"

Barbara blushed. "This is what I wanted to have cleared. I think we... I suggest... well..."

"Barbara, what?!" Tommy stopped her ramblings and took her hand with both of his. "You mean, we shouldn't kiss in the office?" He placed a kiss on her palm. "Show our... love... " - a broad smile accompanied this word and his fingers stroked her hand - "...while we're on duty? I agree. As long as we're not lying about our relationship and as long whenever we're unwatched we won't exercise restraint."

Barbara nodded with a little blush. "Yah, somethin' like that's what I had in mind."

"Alright, then kiss me _now_, we're unwatched."

* * *

><p>A little later, his hair a bit tousled and her face a bit flushed, they left the car park and went down to the basement.<p>

When Barbara came into the cold neon lit room where Stuart Lafferty in his bloody scrubs was bent into a body, he looked up, raised his eyebrows and whistled appreciatively commenting her well-dressed appearance. He knew that suit but never had seen it with such a sexy black blouse, never had seen Barbara with pearls around her neck and her usual ponytail twiddled into some sort of updo. It was obvious that she had planned something different to showing up in the morgue.

"Zechariah 3, 3." he said.

"What?!" she asked and Stuart explained it.

"The Bible. Zechariah 3, verse 3: And Joshua was clothed with filthy clothes, and stood before the face of the angel."

Though she deeply blushed about this compliment Barbara answered. "I'm not a saint. I'm not an angel. I'm a human being."

"Oh, Jane Eyre?" Tommy came into the room, as elegantly dressed as Barbara, now with a bit more order in his hair than minutes ago. Nonetheless Stuart could tell that they had been _together_ on their way to something more romantic than a night at the morgue.

_Would be about time..._

"No." Barbara answered with a perky grin towards her boss that did not slip Stuart's attention. "Annie Lennox."

* * *

><p>During the quick post mortem with an emphasis on that slimy little disappearing thing Lafferty had found in the throat of the corpse Tommy and Barbara stood close to each other, pretending it was because they both needed to have the best view onto that little ugly thingy. In fact Barbara softly rubbed her shoulder on Tommy's arm and he secretly inhaled the scent of her hair. But what distracted her the most were his fingers gently touching the small of her back.<p>

_So much for our agreement about signs of affection at work. _she thought._  
><em>

Luckily Stuart stood on the other side of the bier so he could not see where Lynley's hand was. But he definitely recognised their unusual proximity. At one point Lafferty stopped ignoring it politely. He needed to say something or the electricity between them would resuscitate the corpse on the bier.

"So, you two - is that the new Metropolitain Police Dress standard you're wearing tonight?" He raised a pair of pincers with the remains of the disgusting whatever-it-was, waving it between them. "Chic!"

Simultaneously Tommy and Barbara answered "Shut up, Stuart!"

Barbara blushed and smiled, Tommy grinned and gave her a loving look. Shaking his head and halfway bent into the open corpse Stuart muttered "My, you're an item..."

The two detectives shared one of their silent communications.

Her eyes told him _We are, that's a fact, isn't it?_

His look answered _It is. We should tell him, shouldn't we?_

Barbara nodded. Without breaking eye contact with Tommy she silently confessed it to Stuart. "We _are_." Then both turned to leave. Stuart sharply raised his head and watched the two Detectives on their way out of his cold basement room. Looking back over his shoulder Tommy grinned. He waved with the copy of the provisional PM Lafferty had printed for him.

"Good night, Lafferty! Thanks for the show."

* * *

><p>Now they had told their two closest colleagues what they both not yet had been fully sure of themselves 24 hours ago.<p>

Unfortunately in exactly this moment the Great Bell in the Clock Tower* struck ten.

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>...<p>

* * *

><p>*known as Elizabeth Tower since 2012, the Great Bell is nicknamed Big Ben<p> 


	19. Dinner

**Author's notes: **Let's have...

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

**Dinner  
><strong>

**.**

* * *

><p>When Big Ben stopped chiming Barbara and Tommy had reached her car. Unfortunately the restaurant would not have held their table free until now so it seemed that their romantic dinner was cancelled. They shared a look telling exactly this.<p>

Barbara and Tommy stood at her Mini in the car park of the Met and wondered what to do now. They could go back to the office and start to work their way into the case that now was theirs. They also could do that at home where it would be much more comfortable to have a private chat and what else might come to their minds. Apparently the two detectives had not intended at all to part after dinner and spend the night alone.

Tommy hoped to be invited to stay with her for the night so he suggested a nightcap at her flat.

"A nightcap? Sir, I'm still _hungry_." _Not only for food._

"So, the offer still stands?" _You know what I refer to.  
><em>

Barbara blushed. Her mind already had been on what would have followed after dinner. She did not miss the double meaning in that short exchange and she also did not miss Tommy's hopeful smile that told her he had noticed it too. "My invitation for dinner?" she asked to get away from the innuendos. "Absolutely yes. At least we have to eat something before we..." Her face turned into an even deeper red. "...umm ...get back to work." _Tomorrow..._

She knew of a nice little Indian snack bar near the Met and suggested having a take away curry.

"Agreed. And then - your place or mine?" Tommy smiled. He would have loved to pull her into a hug and kiss her but Barbara had not waited for an answer and had gone around her Mini to leave the car park as soon as possible. She opened the door and got into the car where they continued their conversation.

"It depends on the following paperwork, Sir. Well, in fact I want my little home to stay a living place and not a second office - so it's your place." She did not need to let him see the mess she had made of her flat while she had prepared for the evening.

While he fastened his seat belt Tommy chuckled. He could imagine what she had done there during the afternoon. "Let me guess, clothes strawn all around?"

_He knows me too well._ Barbara nodded grinning. "Mmmh. Kind of..."

She started the engine and finally they headed away from work. Hopefully there won't be any more surprises tonight. Well, not those kinds of surprises related to work that is.

* * *

><p>With their unromantic take away dinner in the leg room between Tommy's feet they drove to his house. More laboriously than usually Barbara parked her car at the kerb in front of it. She was nervous. She knew that she won't drive home tonight if he wanted her to stay. In fact she had packed a change of clothes in her usual oversized handbag. Tommy suddenly was equally nervous. He intended to invite her not only into his house but into his bedroom tonight - if she wanted to stay overnight. As far as he was concerned he never ever again would let her go.<p>

"Welcome to my castle." He bowed invitatingly and followed her in.

In the entrance hall Tommy put the plastic bag with their food onto the drawer cabinet and helped Barbara off with her jacket. With purpose his hands gently brushed her shoulders while their eyes met in a deep look in the mirror above the cabinet. Tommy still held her jacket when he kissed her neck and whispered that he had wanted to have her here in his house like this for quite some time now. Barbara held absolutely still, she even stopped breathing for some seconds, when his hands softly engulfed her waist from behind and he pressed his chest onto her back. Barbara covered his hands with hers. Their eyes met again in the mirror and both minds were on a certain particularly hot story they both had read in Rome.

"Not at the drawer cabinet." he whispered into her ear. _In my bed._

"Not in the shower either, Tommy." she breathed. _In your bed._

"And I haven't got a sofa in my study." _Unfortunately._ Almost unnoticeably he pulled her closer against him and placed another soft kiss on her shoulder. They could hear each other breathing.

"What about the table in the kitchen?" Barbara smiled teasingly with now closed eyes and then turned serious but before she could go on with that playfully seductive murmuring her stomach made itself heard with a loud rumble so she grinned, no less seductively. "But I could be content to have it on the coffee table in your lounge."

With that she took the plastic bag with the food and swayed her hips into his living room, waving the bag on her hooked finger as if it were a handbag - or a baited hook for his Lordship. Tommy swallowed hard. Following her he stumbled over her shoes which she simply had discarded on her way.

"Oh, my messy Cinderella..." he chuckled. _I have to get used to that!_ Her jacket neatly placed on the hook in the hall he called after her. "What about we have a picnic in my garden?" Coming into the living room he added that he had meant their dinner, pointed at the styro packs in the plastic bags and grinned at Barbara's flushed face.

"You have no garden, Tommy."

"Well, I have a balcony with many pot plants, doesn't that count as a garden?" He placed the multiple boxes on the coffee table. "Would you mind opening the wine? It needs to breathe." Barbara helped herself to some expensively looking tumblers that stood on a tray next to some expensively looking Whisky and opened the bottle of ice cold lemonade.

Tommy inhaled in order to tell her that he has suitable glasses for lemonade in the kitchen and that those crystal glass tumblers were designated for his Whisky but then again he inwardly agreed with Barbara's pragmatism that they as well suit for lemonade and so he ignored it. _Why not? Get used to it, old boy..._ Instead he disappeared into his kitchen to get some cutlery. Barbara could hear him rummaging through cupboards for a while until she became impatient.

"Sir, where are you?"

"Who's that _Sir_?" came from the kitchen. Though he could not see it he could imagine that Barbara rolled her eyes (what she did) as well as she imagined him raising his eyebrows (what he actually did). She repeated the question with a mock marked emphasis on his name.

In that moment Tommy came back into the living room, turned off the main lights and put some candles on the coffee table. He gave her a kiss on the top of her head which made her blush a little.

"Mmmh. Sounds better. I was searching for those. Had no use for them for quite some time but now it's the proper moment. And..." he showed her a bottle of Champagne which he had hid behind his back until now. "...I've found this. I told you I'd celebrate with you tonight."

* * *

><p>He looked down on her with a loving expression. Her shy smile up to him stirred him so deeply that he nearly had pushed her into the cushions and kissed her senseless. That was exactly what Barbara had expected (and wanted) in that moment. Instead he ripped his eyes from her face, sat down next to her and opened the bubbly.<p>

They clinked their glasses before they ate.

"To the turn of events. This evening may have had its interruptions and we're on call but it's by far the best evening of my life. Thank _you_."

Barbara timidly smiled but did not look away and held his gaze. _Oh, hell yes, this is by far the best _entire day_ of my life._ "Thank _you_." she whispered. Without a sip from his champagne Tommy suddenly hugged her and gave her a deep kiss that tasted of so much more. He just had needed to when he had seen into her eyes that led him to her loving soul.

* * *

><p>But their dinner called. At first in silence they started eating. It was all but uncomfortable. They had eaten together a lot during their working life time and most of the time they had done it with just a bit of conversation. Barbara preferred it that way. When they had lunched together during a working day Barbara always had been the first to finish. Maybe that was due to the fact that she would speak with her mouth full if she would have needed to say something while Tommy usually even puts away his cutlery when he explained or discussed something. But in Barbara's opinion there always would be enough time to talk or discuss cases over coffee or maybe over the dessert or better over a pint. A meal in her world normally was taken against hunger, not for social chatter. Having the TV running alongside or discuss work things was okay.<p>

_She has to get used to the idea that there will be light conversation over a meal at functions._ Tommy thought and blushed a little at that. He realised that once more he took the fourth step before the second was yet made. He sighed. Barbara watched him out of the corner of her eye and munched a big mouthful of crunchy paprika. Tommy was the first to speak.

"Say, why do you always... well - _still _call me Sir?"

Barbara pondered on that question a bit before she answered. "It's ... well, somehow it's your name. I got used to it. Somehow."

"Please call me Tommy. While on duty you might still call me Sir, but now... when we're in private like this... I'd like to hear you calling me Tommy."

"Yes, Sir."

Tommy stopped and turned to her with a quizzical expression and a little frown. "Haven't I- ?!"

Barbara grinned cheekily. "We're on call, 'n' that's duty. Sir." And she took another fork full of spiced rice in her mouth.

"You _do_ have a crazy mind." He shook his head and smiled. "Havers." _This is going to be a very interesting rest of my life..._

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>...<strong>


	20. On Call

**Author's notes: **Whatever they intend to do, they still are...

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

**On Call  
><strong>

**.**

* * *

><p>After a few more bites she asked how he had learned about those Rese and Liam stories and he cautiously confessed that he had spied on her.<p>

"Sneaky spy guy, you!" Barbara just grinned. She already had suspected that and was not surprised at all. Tommy then told her that he had skimmed over the first story after he had peeped onto the lap top after breakfast when she had forgotten to close the browser.

"Oh." Barbara recalled the awkwardness in that moment. _Yeah, never read it in public..._

"And when I was in bed I was curious and started to read one of those stories. They're very... umm... inspiring, I'd say..."

Barbara blushed a little. "Yah, kind of... distracting... Wasn't it that night when I came into the main room of the suite to get me a drink and you ...umm-"_ ...had undressed me with your eyes._

"M-hm." Tommy's ears went red. "I had wanted to... err... kiss you. You've looked so sexy in your night dress."

Barbara blushed a little more. _You've looked quite sexy yourself, Mister, with nothing on but your pyjama bottoms. _"It's just an old oversized T-shirt."

"Yes, maybe, but a very sexy one." _And you did not wear a bra!_

"Bollocks!" She harrumphed. "You've read more stories?"

"Actually yes, I did. And I've found out that one shouldn't do that in public." Tommy grinned mischievously. "I've read that shower story in the bistro while I've waited for one of the horse breeder's lawyer I've met. Fortunately I've had another thirty minutes to... well, cool off."

He winked at Barbara. _I want to have a shower with you._

"You've made a good deal, I hope."

Then somehow the bits of conversation between bites of curry drifted over to his horse breeding business and to his family. Tommy told her that it seemed that his family already had accepted her as his constant escort and company. "Judith probably had known that there was even more than just that before I had recognised the smallest hint myself. When she called today she told me I should tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"That I love you."

Barbara looked up from her meal and straight into his eyes. She could not speak, she barely was able to breathe. Hearing him saying it again was comforting but it still was strange somehow, although she would love to hear him saying it the entire evening. _I love you too._

"She had been right. I just should have told you and that's what I did and I do not regret that at all." Tommy beamed at her. "It feels good to say it."

"I love you too." Barbara choked. _I could say that all day._

"It feels good to hear that." Tommy grinned broadly before they shared a sensual kiss that tasted a little bit of curry.

* * *

><p>When they had finished their so called candle light dinner Tommy stacked the empty boxes but left them on the table. He did not want to leave the sofa so soon. He did not want to leave her proximity at all so he put an arm around Barbara's shoulders. His right hand found the remote control of his TV on the cushion next to him.<p>

"Some telly?" He finally loosened his tie and Barbara slowly unravelled the knot. Tommy's heart beat faster and he watched her face while she softly fumbled with that silky thing. She acted so naturally as if she had done this for years. _Undress me!_

She shook her head and snuggled closer into his embrace. "No, Sir." she whispered hoarsely and looked up to him.

_Kiss me, Tommy!_ her mind screamed and Tommy kissed her.

For nearly thirty minutes they sat side by side on the sofa and kissed and whispered sweet nothings. They stroked each other's chests and backs and necks and shoulders. They wrapped their arms around the other. They snuggled, they cuddled, they unrestrainedly snogged and they gently touched. His fingers caressed her face while they deeply looked into each others eyes. Her hands raked through his hair while their foreheads gently bumped. Their lips softly pressed close while their chests felt the other one's heat radiating and hearts beating. Their legs entangled and twisted like their tongues did.

Eventually Barbara moaned displeased. Somehow her back ached and her legs were twisted in a quite uncomfortable way with Tommy's. She moved away from his chest and sat up stretching. Her shoulders creaked.

"I'm not feeling very comfortable, Tommy."

He looked shocked. "What do you mean?"

"It's an awfully awkward position on your sofa." Her eyes told him exactly what she thought. _Carry me into your castle, Sir Knight!_

"Well, we could... umm..." Suddenly only his mind but not his mouth dared to finish the sentence._ ...move into my bedroom._

His fingertips softly slid up and down her spine.

* * *

><p>Right in that moment his bloody mobile buzzed. Barbara never ever before had heard such a nasty curse from the lips of His Lordship but being on call he could not ignore it and needed to answer his phone. Without checking the caller ID he picked it up and snarled "Yes, what?! Lynley here!"<p>

"Gosh, Tommy..." Barbara giggled, already back to snuggling into his chest. It all felt so natural. _He is mine. _she thought._ Mine. All mine. Unbelievable._

"Mother." he moaned in annoyance. "Yes, what is it? Make it brief. I- ... u-hu ... yes ... yes, but Mother, I- ... Would y- ... u-hu ... Stop!" This was most certainly also meant for Barbara who had started to open the top buttons of his shirt and playfully tickled his chest with the tips of her fingers.

His arms still laid around her shoulders. "Could you please tell me all this tomorrow? I'm not alone and I'm-"

In the meantime Barbara had scooted up to the crook of his neck and kissed and nibbled him there. She grunted in amusement while she tried to distract him from the call on purpose. Actually she tried to leave a lovebite under his shirt but Tommy sensed that and always wriggled away.

Where Barbara now laid she could hear his mother's answers on the other end of the line.

_"Oh, sorry, I understand. Do I know her?"_

"Mother!" Tommy moaned in annoyance. _How does she always know - Oh, I know. Judith had told her!_ "It's Barbara. And we're-"

_"Finally!"_ That sounded relieved. Barbara hesitated for a moment before she continued to gently gnaw at his stubbly chin. She had changed her position and meanwhile was straddling him with both hands flat on his sides pushing him into the cushions of the backrest where he had laid his head. She had not intended to make it so erotic, she just had wanted to change her position to have better access to his chest and face while he was on the phone, but she actually had come to like that feeling and very much enjoyed teasing Tommy. She hummed her smiling lips onto his Adam's apple when a certain birthday story came into her mind and made her blush about her unusual straightforwardness. _You're mine!_ she thought again. _And I'll never ever let you go. To hell with the Lordship-thing and all that stuff..._

"I beg your pardon?" Then he added more to Barbara than to his mother "Would you stop that please?" and placed a finger on his lips to silence her. His mother clearly must have heard her snorting chuckles.

_"Oh, you very well know what I mean, Tommy. You've been dancing around each other for years. It's getting annoying to watch you both. It's about time that you two finally-"_ Now it was his turn to interrupt her.

"Mother, we're on call. Duty, understand? Would you mind if we stop-"

_"Of course, Tommy." _Even Barbara had sensed her ironic amusement._ "My regards to Barbara. I wish you both a _very_ good night, Tommy."_

" 'night, mother." Tommy disconnected and carelessly threw his mobile onto the coffee table next to Barbara's. With one hand on her waist he held her where she was. "And now to you, young lady..."

Barbara had smiled and grinned constantly during his call and now she started to laugh uproariously because Tommy tickled her without mercy. With his feet now on the coffee table and one arm firmly on her leg, holding her hip tight onto his he kept her in place on his lap. Though she tried to wriggle free she could not get away from his teasing fingers on her waist. Her sitting position alone was a sweet torture for Tommy but feeling her wriggle over his groin now he felt a very physical reaction and it was growing. At some point Barbara felt it too. Not only _his_ but also _her_ own reaction.

"Tommy!" she whispered and closed her eyes. She never really had learned to ride but this felt very natural and admittedly very good. His tickles meanwhile had stopped and he just was holding her waist while their lower bodies, dressed as they were, moved together in a very obvious rhythm causing pleasurable friction.

"Barbara." he sounded as pleased as she was.

"Maybe we should change the location." She heard herself saying. _Is that _my_ guttural voice speaking?!_

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><p><strong>.<strong>

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><p><strong>...<strong>


	21. In Touch

**Author's notes: Remember - this story is M-rated!**

A merry, merry Christmas to everyone! Happy Hanuka, joyful winter solstice or whatever your religion celebrates these days. If not at all then at least I wish you peace, joy, a good health and loving people around you!

Let's keep...

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><p><strong>.<strong>

**In Touch  
><strong>

**.**

* * *

><p><em>"Maybe we should change the location." She heard herself saying.<em>

* * *

><p>"Definitely we should." He answered with his lips on her throat.<p>

Reluctantly Barbara got up when the remains of their dinner catched her eye. Maybe a little sudden cowardness let her point it out. "I do not remember you being so careless about that, we could definitely put that away."

Tommy placed a hand in the small of her back and he whispered into her nape. "Help me?" _Though I don't care about that rubbish._

She paused. She even paused breathing. _I'll help you with whatever you want me to._ "You did read _all_ of those get together stories, didn't you?"

He placed both hands on her waist and nuzzled in her hair above her ear. "I did. And your comments."

"Gods..." Barbara blushed and with a look at the rubbish she added "I will help you."

Her hip was pressed against his groin when he hoarsely whispered into her ear. "I'll help you to my bedroom, Barbara. Now. Forget that bloody rubbish!"

For a brief moment she closed her eyes, feeling his impatience in her back, feeling a pleasurable tension in her abdomen building. "Gods, oh yes!"

Under kisses and soft nudges Tommy gently manoevered Barbara out of his living room and up the stairs. Somewhere between the first and the top landing his shoes were discarded. It was time to behave irresponsible. For once in his life Tommy ignored his phone during on-call duty and the rubbish from their dinner, both left behind on the coffee table.

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><p>Tommy closed the door with his heel, never letting her move too far away from his arms. He turned on the light and dimmed it until it was just enough to see each other. His arms then went around her waist and he pulled her close. Their lips met in an intense kiss. Their hips were pressed. She could feel him through all the cloth. Their hips swayed with each other.<p>

"Let's dance." He breathed into her ear. "Together."

His hands slid across her back onto her bottom. Her hands found _his_. Their tongues twisted frantically. When they came up for air it was not that they stopped kissing. While her lips still hovered over his mouth Barbara continued opening the buttons of his shirt until she shoved it from his shoulders. They did not bother that it hang down now, still tucked in his waistband. There was no time to take it off because Barbara needed to touch his bare chest. her flat hands roamed across his skin and made him shiver slightly. At the same time Tommy's fingers hurried down the button border of her blouse. He tugged softly at the dark cloth until he could take it off her chest and throw it on the floor.

A wave of goose pimples shivered across her whole body when the back of his fingers softly slid across her sides. She closed her eyes and bumped her forehead onto his shoulder where she left a soft, wet kiss. She wanted him to free her from her bra but Tommy took his time. He caressed her skin and buried his face into her hair until he could hear a soft moan from Barbara. Only then he tentatively opened the clasp in her back and helped her off.

The moment the delicate garment touched the floor her taut peaks brushed his naked chest. Barbara took a deep breath and held it or otherwise she would have thrown herself against Tommy. Her hands laid on the front of his shoulders and she barely could keep herself from digging her fingers into his flesh. Her body screamed for his skin. Oh, how she wanted that man.

"Mmmmh." Tommy hummed and saw a sweet blush creeping across her neck. He caressed the sides of her breasts and watched her reaction. When he took them both fully in his hands Barbara sighed and closed her eyes. Their kisses became more intense again.

Groin on groin and step by step they crossed the room until she felt the bed in the hollows of her knees. Her grip on his upper arms tightened to steady her footing.

Without ending the embrace Tommy opened the drawer of his bedside table. Some condoms laid on top. His voice was low and throaty when he spoke. "I've made provisions. Do we need one?"

"No." Barbara whispered. "No. I trust you and besides I already have. Feel it?"

She wound her arm around his neck and pointed on a mark on the inside of her left upper arm. Tommy pressed his lips onto the dark spot that indicated the injection and sensed the little hard thing under her skin with his tongue. The two inch long rod finally had a right to exist. His lips kissed a trace around her arm, up to her shoulder and farther up her neck to her ear.

Barbara closed her eyes again. "I was about to have it removed 'cause I had no use for it for quite some time but now it's the proper moment." She smiled. _And I want to feel all of you._

"Remove it soon, Barbara." he growled into her ear, once more thinking of a future step before the very next one was made.

Barbara understood what he implied and she was a bit shocked that it did not shock her at all. It suddenly seemed to be a normal thing thinking of a family. Something definitely had shifted. Besides the wanton feeling in her lower body excluded nearly most of the ability for proper thinking. She only wanted to love him and be loved now and with delight she sensed that he already was helping her off her pants.

* * *

><p>Barbara fumbled with Tommy's belt but something with it jammed so she gave up and growled. "Remove that thing!" she ordered with anger. It made Tommy chuckle. <em>She's as impatient as me. Holy, this is going to be the best short- Oh, no, not a quickie! I need to do things slowly...<em>

With his hands taking off his trousers and his lips still on hers he mumbled that it won't be easy for him tonight.

"Expectations were pitched high by those stories..."

He lowered her onto the mattress and coiling her arms around his neck she whispered that it never had happened on a bed in those stories, so there was no expectation at all. An entranced smile never left her face.

"I just want to make love to you, Tommy, and let you make love to me."

His lips trailed down between her breasts.

"I never would have thought you'd be so..." He kissed her bosom. "So..."

"...straightforward? Something has shifted, remember? Oh, yes... mmmh... Now shut up and love me!" She pulled his face up to hers to reach his lips. This sudden movement made him lose his balance and he half fell down on her. His right knee was between her legs and his manhood pressed into her thigh. An approving sound told him that he did not hurt her when he fell. Her hand squeezed his bum.

"You're a little impatient, aren't you?" he asked with amusement in his voice.

"Hell, yes, I am." she impulsively answered.

"So am I." Tommy whispered. Barbara pressed her hips up to his and clearly felt it and felt it growing. Tommy moaned. "Oh, hell, yes - so am I."

A deep kiss with a sweet tongue-fight mirrored what their lower bodies not yet were able to but tried. Impatiently Barbara shoved his boxers down his legs and caressed his bum cheeks with massaging pressure. With a little wriggling and a bit of fidgeting both had gotten rid of the last two bits of bothering cloth between them and Tommy finally laid between her bent legs, his hard member already asking for admission. He felt her readiness and groaned. _I really need to slow down or this is over too soon._

Tommy licked her right breast and nibbled at its bud. "This is going to be a-"

"Tommy!" she interrupted him.

"Hmmm?" His lips still were on his breast. Their hips rolled pressing onto each other. "Wha'?" he mumbled.

"Shut. Up." Barbara moaned and lifted her hip to welcome him. "Oh, god, Tommy!" she groaned when he slid his full length in.

"Oh, yes." Tommy groaned into her ear. "That's me."

Tempo and intensity rapidly increased. Both were impatient. Both did not want to wait another second. Both needed to fulfill their mutual needs. Both wanted this so much that there was no restriction anymore. A few thrusts were enough to bring them to the edge. A few more thrusts brought them over it and even less more thrusts were necessairy to bring them to a shared climax.

Barbara arched her back, screwed up her eyes, dug her nails into his shoulders and cried out loud while an ocean of lust washed over her. She felt the shuddering tension of his muscles when he came. The warmth between her legs and between her cramping inner muscles plus the ongoing hard thrusts let her dive into a second pool of pleasure.

After he could not hold himself up anymore and finally crushed down on her, he kept lying there for a short while. Barbara enjoyed the heavy weight of his drained body. _Yowza!_ she thought with closed eyes and dreamily smiled up to the ceiling.

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><p><strong>.<strong>

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><p><strong>...<strong>

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><p><strong>Author's notes: <strong>As the three dots might indicate there will be a little more to come. It's not much but it's definitely not yet finished and at the moment I'm a bit pre-occupied with the festivities, so please be patient - very patient!**  
><strong>


	22. Our Story

**Author's warning: Still very M-rated! **I've let my smutty mind play a bit. If you don't endure such, then don't read it...**  
><strong>

**Author's notes: **Okay, it took me some time to write, finish and polish this chapter (which originally was meant as the last). ;-) Then I thought I'd wait a few days more because somebody had published another story that had distracted me too much. Kudos. Ahem...

Well, now here we are near the end of...

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><p><strong>.<strong>

**Our Story **- Enjoy it!**  
><strong>

**.**

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><p><em>Yowza! she thought with closed eyes and dreamily smiled up to the ceiling.<em>

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><p>"Mmsry..." After a short period of recovering he had rolled away, mainly off her body, and now mumbled against her neck. He had not rolled away <em>too<em> far.

"What?"

"I said I'm sorry." he repeated.

"What for?" She ruffled the hair in his nape with still closed eyes and the smile still on her lips.

"I definitely had planned this to be... much more romantic and gentle and not such a..." Tommy could not find the right word.

"Impatient outburst?" Barbara helped. She had said it in a very enchanted way and had sounded not a bit disappointed.

"Mmmh." She felt his head nodding against her arm where he buried his face as if he was not able to look at the woman he had just made intense love to.

_Save the date!_ she thought. _Tommy Lynley is abashed. _Her heart bursted with love for the man next to her, who she shamelessly had taken a few moments ago. "I think we both weren't able to... umm... slow things down, were we."

"Mmmmh." Tommy hummed and pulled the blanket over their heated bodies. When Barbara eventually thought he had fallen asleep he went on whispering against her neck. "I'll make it up to you."

He moved impossibly nearer and reached her lips so they could share a slow and sensual kiss that left Barbara already afire again. Under the duvet they kept lying huddled together and kissed and watched each other. Their hands gently roamed the other's body. Fingertips traced muscles and shoulders and spines, palms caressed breasts and arms and stirring waists. Tommy tugged a loose strand of hair behind her ear and softly smiled. After another soft kiss he whispering told her how he had found out that he wanted her. First, he said, he had recognised only her body, had felt a stirring in his groin when he saw her in that shirt.

"But then I was angry with myself for not worshipping you as a person and as much as you deserve it." He looked at her so deeply sorry that Barbara had to smile. She cupped his face and gave him a lasting kiss.

"I was pleased about your view too, Tommy. I'd love to have ripped off your pyjama bottoms in the second I saw them stretchin' above your bum when you knelt in front of that fridge." She smugly grinned. "And I have to admit that your constant little touches placed here and there when we were out in Rome had made me go limp." Another sweet kiss followed. "You did those on purpose, didn't you." Barbara whispered between feathery kisses.

"No, I didn't. In fact I didn't know what I was doing." Another lingering kiss followed. "I was just recognising that you are _more_ than beautiful-"

"Oh, bollocks!" Her cheeks glowed red.

"-and _more_ than just a good friend. I had recognised that you are _drop-dead_ beautiful - don't object, Sergeant!" Tommy kissed the tip of her nose. "I had found out that you are smashingly marvellous, and that you mean the world to me."

"Oh, Tommy..." Barbara diverted her eyes to his chest. "Don't-"

"Yes. Yes, I _do_, my love." Tommy kissed her forehead and spoke fervently. "I do. I can't help it. I'm the happiest man alive. I don't deserve you. I had been an idiot for too long a time. I was dumb having you next to me and not acting, running after the wrong women, craving for love in the wrong places, but you still stayed at my side. You are still here with me and I'm going to make it up to you for all the years I've let pass by blindly."

His fiery lips slowly trailed down her throat and around her neck, then tentatively up to her ear where they gently tugged at her earlobe. His warm breath tickled her when he aspirated sweet vows.

"I'm going to make love to you again, Barbara. I intend on loving you the whole night through. I'm going to make you wake up tired and let you appear late at work. Tonight I will honour you with the longest pleasure a woman ever had felt. You are going to be spoiled rotten until you dissolve."

Those sweet auspicious words alone sent a shiver across her skin. "I don't believe I'd stand this for long, Tommy."

* * *

><p>He propped himself up on one elbow and pulled away the covers again. He wanted to see her whole body, wanted to watch her breasts heaving with every breath she took. Barbara watched his face and waited for what would follow now. Tommy simply watched her. Then his fingertips traced gently around her left breast, circled the dark skin up to the meanwhile hardened pike, then he kissed it softly.<p>

Barbara closed her eyes, savouring every single touch. A soft push turned her cautiously onto her back. While his tongue played with her left breast his hand softly massaged her right one in the same way, twitching slightly at the bud, caressing it with his thumb. Her breathing had turned deep and uneven, shaking with every special touch his hands did to her body.

He skidded over her, had one knee between her legs and his groin above her thigh. His chest was less than an inch away from hers and she felt the wonderfully intimate heat between them. Tender hands pushed her arms up until they rested above her head. He did not need to pin or ask her to keep them there.

"Imagine yourself tied up." he croaked into her ear. "Please."

"I am." Barbara turned her head to his face and they just looked into each other's eyes. She did not object and in fact enjoyed being presented to him in such a way. She stretched like a cat in the sun and earned an approving sound from his lips.

"Beautiful!" he moaned and came down on her lips again. One soft touch of his lips on hers followed the other. With every little kiss the contact became longer and his chest moved closer until he covered her with body and lips and her mouth willingly had opened to let his tongue inside, let his tongue explore her teeth, explore her palate and let his tongue twist with its opponent. Barbara had a hard time to withstand the urge to grip him and press his body onto to her again. The desire in her already had been built up to a high level. Tommy could tell from her answer to his kisses and the way her body slightly wriggled in order to hold back the urge to arch against him. She twisted her arms and clasped her hands. Finally he felt a longing pressure coming from her hip up to his groin.

Tommy had to suppress a smug grin when he quickly shot a glance onto her delighted face. Her eyes were tightly shut.

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><p>Leaving her mouth his tongue left a wet trace on its way back to her breasts. His hands slid on the inner sides of her arms from her crossed wrists across her elbows to her armpits and farther down to the sides of her breasts. Barbara had held her breath and now gasped in absolute delight when his hands cupped her soft rounds. His mouth even moved deeper onto her belly. He cherished every square inch of her silky skin with kisses until he reached the hard seam that testified her braveness. Barbara sucked in some air.<p>

"This shouldn't have happened." he whispered and let his wet tongue slide along the rough line on her belly. She was afraid of what would follow. She feared embarrassment.

"But it did, Tommy." Barbara still kept her eyes closed, briefly reliving the millisecond before the world went dark after the shot. It felt like it had happened centuries ago.

"I was so scared I'd never see you again." His fingers outlined the dark skin followed by his lips. Then he found her belly button. "I never would have imagined that it was so close to the center." _So close to lose you._

"No." Barbara whispered. Nobody except the medics ever had seen her scars, let alone touched it, in absolutely no way ever had caressed or kissed it. Water filled her eyes. She had not needed to be afraid of rejection or awkwardness. This scar was a part of her, in fact it was a part of their partnership. Tommy once more kissed a juicy way across the scar.

"It's a part of you. I love it. I love it with all the painful memories it brings." he aspirated.

His other hand meanwhile flatly slid down her side to her hip. The squeezing of his hands caused her belly to be teeming with happy ants.

"Oh, Tommy!" Barbara breathed and a tear trailed down her temple.

"Now I'm here for you!" his lips tickled onto her abdomen and kissed the small pad of curly hair on her pubic mound. "And I'll never go away."

Both of his hands slid around her thighs to the inner sides of them and gently nudged them apart. Avoiding her center his kisses on the insides of her legs built up a wanton need in her lower body. Just laying above her head until now her hands searched for something to hold and so Barbara found the horizontal bars of the headboard of his modern bed to grip tight.

"Mmmmh. Feels good." she moaned and helplessly squirmed under his ministrations. "I'm all yours."

* * *

><p>Now that he knelt between her legs his lips finally found her pink knob. Barbara groaned. Almost unnoticeable his hands pinned her legs apart while his tongue circled around her sensitivity. He smelled her arousal and still a bit of their previous explosion and it spoke to all his nerves.<p>

"And you're mine, Tommy." Barbara panted. "Are you?" She wanted to be taken soon. Everything inside her screamed for him.

One of his fingers entered her hot center. She groaned his name once more.

"Oh, I am." he grunted into her curls. He loved to hear her moaning his name. He loved to hear her moaning. He loved to make her moan and these little moans that constantly escaped her lips made him shiver in need to fill her properly but he held back to give Barbara her own special pleasure. His one single finger left her wetness only to be replaced by two digits sliding inside.

"This should never stop." Barbara writhed but could not get away from this pleasure. Tommy was doing magical things with her that nobody ever did before. She did not recognise what was rolling off her tongue the entire time. "I intend to keep you."

"Is that so?" Tommy chuckled between her legs. His teeth scratched across the insides of her thighs.

"Oh, yes. I'll never _ever_ let you go. Mmmmh." She bent her knees and very willingly opened herself totally to whatever he would love to do to her.

Tommy's thumb added a slight pressure onto her swollen folds when he let his fingers leave her again, feeling the cave tightening. "I am yours forever."

"Is that a promise? Oooh..." She arched her back when she felt his wetted fingers stroke her up and down on the soft flesh of her entrance and then slid into her again.

"Is _that_ a proposal?" He moved his fingers and curled them a bit, thus sending a magnificently sweet bolt of rapture through her abdomen. She was about to answer when Tommy additionally sucked at her pink button. It sent her over the edge of the last bit of resistance.

"Oh, yes!" Barbara groaned and pushed her sanctum into his face. The meaning of his words reached her brain through a fog of desire. "No." His fingers spread her tightness. "Yes. Oh, god, Tommy!" His fingers pushed a bit deeper. "Hell, yes!"

"Then _my_ answer is yes." he spoke onto her belly. He still had the taste of her on his tongue.

Barbara was totally turmoiled and could not really focus on that inconceivable conversation. "To which que..." His fingers fidgeted inside her. "Ooooh, gawd, don't stop that!" Her hands now were buried into the hair in the back of his head and she shamelessly pulled his face closer. Tommy's own arousal grew with every involuntary twitch of her inner muscles around his playing digits. The scent of her wetness right under his nose spoke to every olfactory nerve in his system. He had a hard time not to lose himself.

"Yes! Is the an!swer to your propo!sal!" A thrust with his fingers emphasised his words like exclamation marks.

Her following orgasm, accompanied by a loud wordless moan, was such a pure pleasure for Tommy that he nearly followed her and when it began to ebb away he scooted up across her body. Without any effort his length slid into her still heated and soaking wet center, into the still constricting hot pool of pleasure. He slid in as deep as he could.

* * *

><p>"Feels good indeed!" he panted between tender kisses onto her breast while he teasingly slowly started to thrust in and out, eliciting a soft moan from Barbara each and every time. "You're feeling so good."<p>

"You...!" Deep inside herself she could feel his shaft growing and filling her completely. Her inner walls were moving on their own will around him. She pushed her hip up to his in the attempt to deepen their connection as if there still was any space between them. He finally touched her innermost places.

Tommy's tongue slid into her willingly opened mouth again and mirrored the wet actions on the southern side of their bodies. The actions' speed increased with every breath they took. Their breathing did so too.**  
><strong>

Barbara snaked her left arm around his neck and dug her right hand's fingers into his shoulder. She was near her second orgasm, in fact she never left the ridge. The culmination started to center again and in need for air she threw her head back thus presenting her throat to his ravenous lips. Tommy buried his face into the crook of her neck. They were both on the same level, they were both on the thin line between arousal and orgasm. Not for long.

"Oh my..." he moaned.

When he thuddered with a last hard thrust he spilled his pleasure into her and growled at the same moment her inner muscles constricted around his shaft, attended by her loud approving cry. He did not feel her nails scratching across his back. She did not feel the little gentle bite of his teeth in her shoulder.

Once more he collapsed onto her. This time both definitely needed more time to come back to normal breathing. When Tommy slid off her she still shivered from that little friction it caused.

Lying on a soaked sheet, covered with the wetnesses of their lovemaking, still sweating and totally spent, they still held onto each other, slipping trembling hands over still excited skin, rubbing chest onto chest. Exchanging a few exhausted kisses and deeply satisfied looks they both slowly slipped into the restorative world of sleep.

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><p>It was getting cool as they were lying naked without a cover so eventually Tommy woke and stirred. Barbara sensed it and opened her eyes.<p>

"Hey!" He smiled at her and her heart made a jump. _He's still here. It's not a dream._

"Hey, you!" Barbara cupped his cheek, her thumb brushing his lips. She could do this forever. This was what she had been fantasizing about for years and finally her fairy tale dream had come true. She hoped that when she gets up tomorrow this dreamlike reality would not burst like a rainbow bubble. She told herself to take whatever she got from this man as long as it might last.

_Forever! _Barbara freezed._ Was that a promise of marriage inbetween?_ she suddenly wondered but believed it must have been a misunderstanding in the heat of their actions.

"You will accompany me at Howenstow next weekend!" Tommy whispered and tightened his arms around her. "We need to tell my mother something _very_ important."

"What? She already knows what's going on. I've heard it in her voice via telephone." Barbara smiled, snuggled into his chest and closed her eyes while he covered their bodies with the duvet.

"Well..." The handsome man in her arms kissed her behind her ear. Then he pushed her a little bit away to be able to look in her eyes properly. Barbara saw love and hope shimmering in his. "But she does not yet know that she soon won't be Lady Asherton anymore."

Barbara's eyes widened. _No misunderstanding!_

"Barbara, I mean it." His eyes turned serious. He took her hand and gave her a small kiss on it, then turned it and kissed her palm, then her wrist, never averting his eyes from her. Seeing her small hand in his his eyes fell onto his signet ring. He took it off his left little finger and slipped it onto Barbara's ring finger.

"Be my Countess!" Those words were firmly spoken.

Barbara was speechless. "Umm..."

"Cinderella." his voice was hoarse when he called her so. "Please!"

Barbara could not say a word. Tears fell when she nodded.

This was her _very real_ fairy-tale ending that had started with a cold and rainy, extremely brutal week in muddy Sheffield. In fact it had started in Richmond about ten years ago when they first were put together - she, the spiky, unruly Sergeant, constantly about to be demoted because of her disobedient behaviour, and he, the angry, poncy Lord Detective Inspector, constantly struggling with the two worlds he was living in and the emotions he could not handle. Nobody ever would have thought they would cope somehow. Nobody had dared to think that those two so very different people would cope so well. Nobody could have imagined that these two people would finally end up together, end up being in love with each other.

They shared another sensual kiss.

"I love you, Tommy."

"I love you too."

* * *

><p>.<p>

* * *

><p>The night was young, their love was too, they both had to make up for the time they had frittered away. Barbara and Tommy spent the dark time of the day with giving each other their souls, their hearts and their bodies. They gave and they received, they let go and they took. They tore down fences and waved aside restrictions and in the morning they woke up lying across the damp bed, still totally exhausted and very tired but still not too late for having breakfast and arriving at the office in time.<p>

Breakfast would be a quick one because they had become a bit distracted under the shared shower and after she "helped" him tying his tie he needed to "thank" her so breakfast had to be skipped. After the long kiss Tommy chuckled. "Maybe one time we will write one of those stories - _our_ story - together." he winked and pulled her into another kiss.

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><p>On his way downstairs he picked up his shoes. When he stumbled over Barbara's shoes in the hall he already had a title in the back of his mind:<p>

**Little Glass Slippers**

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><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>...<strong>

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><p><strong>Author's note:<strong> Thanks for reading and even more thanks for reviewing! Thanks for all your inspirations!

It's funny, but after having written so many get-together-stories in a row I finally kind of struggled with this last one - the expectations were pitched high ;-) It needed to be a perfect one and I'm still not totally pleased with it. Anyway, I think it worked somehow ;-) and hope you enjoyed it!

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><p><strong>Author's final note under this chapter:<strong> This story is not yet complete. There will follow another twinned chapter.


	23. Fairy Tale

**Author's notes:** Here it is, the final chapter, revised faster than I thought.

I had another _short_ idea *giggles* and needed to prolong the Cinderella story but while I wrote it, I got carried away. It went a totally unexpected detour of about **6500 words (!)** so now it's not what I originally had in mind. I'm quite pleased with the result anyway. In the last third you will find another Rese and Liam story inserted (between **(X+)** and **(+X)** as usual) so you may want to read the twinned Barb and Tommy version first (found as chapter 7 in Get Together) if you haven't already.

Oh, as I just had re-read it in total I think I should give a mild tissue warning. *smiles*

Here's _a little bit_ of Fluffy at the end of the...

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><p><strong>.<strong>

**Fairy Tale **(Rese and Liam VII, 1077)

**.**

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><p>Barbara stood at the huge window in the great study at Howenstow. She watched her two little sons joyfully playing in the snow with their Grandma and their new little puppy while she absentmindedly stroked her belly. She was married to Tommy for nearly five years now.<p>

_Five years!_ She marvelled. Barbara recalled that she had quite easily - well, easier than she had thought before - become accustomed to her new family, to all those luckily not _too_ frequent functions and luncheons, to her new life as Tommy's wife, as the Countess of Asherton, as a mother. And she had become used to the new life without police duties.

She had quit the active forces when she became pregnant with their first son Anthony, who came into this world seven months after his parents' marriage. Well, in fact she had quit active duty as soon as she and Tommy had finished their arguments about that matter. It also had been made easier because of the fact that she automatically had been seperated from Tommy at work. She had been assigned to another DI as soon as their superiors came to know of their private relationship.

Barbara played with her engagement ring. First it had been Tommy's signet ring, she remembered. A ring too big for her hands, too prominent for daily work at the Met. Winston had spotted it the second she had entered the office, she remembered.

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><em>It had been quite a turbulent time, the last few days. First the bloody case near Sheffield, then the boring file searching and embarrassing poking in the past while she was in Rome with Tommy. While she endured the turmoiling proximity of him. Then the maddening weekend alone at home at her computer that had ended with something like a declaration of love via E-mail, followed by a sizzling day at work without a second alone with him, a ruined dinner, a real declaration of love in the car at a crime scene and in the end the most exhausting on-call duty night of her life. They had made love nearly the entire night.<em>

_And they had proposed. Well, somehow. _Her_ proposal had been in the middle of something and she still could not quite put it together in retrospective. Somehow Tommy had twisted her incoherent words. _His_ proposal had been a little bit more tender, definitely clear, but still under the sheets. _

_The next morning when they arrived at the office (right on time but without a breakfast) Winston spotted in an instant that Barbara wore Tommy's signet ring. He was about to cry out in joy but knew better and as soon as he had a second alone with Barbie he dragged her aside and interviewed her._

_"You little minx, you!" he laughed and hugged her whole-heartedly. _

_"What?" Barbara answered equally laughing. She knew exactly what he was referring to. Winston grabbed her hand and put it under her nose._

_"Don't say you are-" and now he pursed his lips "-his _fiancée_! And here I am thinking that you share a tender little budding love. Nooo, not my Barbie." He squeezingly hugged her again. "You catch him and you land him in the second he is on the hook."_

_"Winnie, I didn't _fish_ him."_

_"Oh, you did, mylady. You did. Haha. And Lafferty ows me ten quid." Winston broadly grinned.  
><em>

_Barbara's eyes grew wide "You haven't bet on us, have you!?"_

_"Half a year after Helen had left him I had told Stu that one day you two are goin' to be an item. He said 'Never ever.' - and even though it took you a few moments - well, who's right now, huh? Oh, I'm so happy for you!"_

_Then Barbara bound him to secrecy. She wanted to have a little more time working with Tommy.  
><em>

_"I'm afraid they will seperate us." she murmured. "And as long as Hillier doesn't know as long we can go on working together."_

* * *

><p><em>While they were having this conversation Tommy sat in his office doing some private phone calls. Later in the afternoon, when Barbara was going through some CCTV footage with Winston, he left the office to 'run some personal errands' and he had texted her that sadly he won't be back but pick her up in the evening.<em>

_Barbara helplessly laughed out loud when she read the well known text._

_[ Today dinner at 8. Dress nicely. I'll pick you up. Tx ]  
><em>

_She had gone home and tidied up her flat which was very necessary after the previous day's dressing marathon and then she prepared for the evening. It was nothing too fancy and not the dark suit she had worn the previous evening because Tommy had sent another text saying that she could wear jeans and jumper if she would like._

_Tommy knocked at eight sharp. Barbara was not yet ready but opened the door to let him wait inside. Straight at her door they first shared a deep kiss. Barbara did what she still had to do while he waited standing in the middle of her lounge room.  
><em>

_"Shall we?" she asked when she had finished but he answered "No. Not yet."_

_He took her hand and got down on one knee. Barbara's heart stopped and she forgot to breathe._

_"There is something I need to do first, as it had come to happen that it hadn't been quite proper last night."_

_Barbara swallowed and already had watery eyes. Tommy looked up to her and gave her a single red rose which he had hidden god knows where. Then he produced a little velvety box from his jeans pocket and opened it. He took the ring out. The box was flying uncared of onto her sofa._

_"Barbara." Tommy took another deep breath. "I know I am not an easy man, I know I am offering a strange world to you, and I know life - especially working life - with me will be a very different one from now on. But I've lost my heart to you. I give you the rest of me. My body, my soul, my life, my world. I love you."_

_Meanwhile silent tears streamed down Barbara's cheeks. Tommy took his oversized signet ring from her finger and with trembling hands slipped a decidedly smaller one on it. It was silver with a small emerald, a slightly bigger diamond and the Asherton crest daintily engraved._

_"Barbara Havers. Will you do me the honour and accept my hand in marriage?"_

_"I do. Oh, yes, I do, Tommy!" Barbara choked and bent down to kiss him._

_They did not make it _anywhere_ for dinner._

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p>Sir Hillier had been informed officially a few weeks after they had solved the case they had been pushed in. They had tried a couple of days to keep their relationship in the shadows but it had not worked. They had longed to be able to act like a normal couple. Hillier had seperated them immediately. Barbara still thought that he only had waited for this chance.<p>

They had married soon. Both had wanted children and since they weren't the youngest anymore they had agreed on having her hormone rod removed. The age of 38 was sufficiently late to conceive for the first time. It had happened when they had thought that the rod still worked so in the end their marriage was only eight months after their first kiss. Barbara memorised a few turbulent but happy days.

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><em>They had talked about having a family before and it should happen very soon. They were not in their twenties anymore so they should not wait too long with having a child.<em>

_"Children." Tommy had insisted with a juicy grin._

_"I know I want to have _one_. If it's goin' to be another one - I'll wait and see. It's me who has the hardest part."_

_"But I want us to marry before that." he threw in.  
><em>

_Barbara had avoided that topic long enough but now it came on top. They planned it old-fashioned - first the marriage, then the baby._

_"Babies." Tommy grinned. And then he talked about her retirement from service._

_"Are you crazy? I will go on working. We're not in the dark age anymore." Barbara fiercely objected. This had been their first argument about that topic. It had not been their last._

_The original plan had been to marry in September, which would have been a bit more than a year after their trip to Rome, and then start straight away with making a baby. Tommy always chuckled about that term. If all went like planned their first child would be a summer child. In the end it all did not turn out the way they had expected._

* * *

><p><em>A bit more than half a year before the planned marriage date Barbara had the rod removed. It would have needed to be replaced by a new one anyway so they had decided on an alternative for the meantime. One week after the removal they had sat in his study in their house in London - she had moved in already, why should they have gone on living seperated - and went over the guest list. It ended in a heated discussion about the size of the event. Barbara would have liked to keep it small, Tommy wanted to have a real festivity with all important, less important and other relatives, family and friends. When they finally had come to a solution somewhere inbetween their opposing ideas they also had come to a position somewhere inbetween the armrests of his chair, kissing deeply and 'signing' their consensus. At some point they continued their 'negotiations' upstairs.<br>_

_Seven weeks after that Barbara went to a follow-up examination of the rod extraction and had her yearly routine screening at the same time. Her MD had told her the good news. Irregularities after the removal were not unusual so she had not thought about them at all but in fact fertility had returned sooner than every patient information leaflet would have said. _

_Barbara had gone back to their house and waited for Tommy to come home. She went around aimlessly. She rearranged the already neatly stacked magazines on the coffeetable, she picked at the plants in Tommy's study and lingered a while in his chair. She stroked her abdomen, still unswollen, covered by her beloved ice hockey shirt she had put on after the visit at the doctor to find some comfort in it. Alien curiosity and fright was in her eyes when she watched her belly in the huge mirror in their bath after she had showered for the third time today. This pregnancy was too soon and too late at the same time and very, very strange. She was turmoiled between happiness, despair, bliss and horror and had cried almost the entire afternoon._

* * *

><p><em>"Cinderella, what's wrong?" Tommy asked silently into her ear. Barbara jerked. She had stood staring out of the window and had not heard him coming and she also had not heard him talking to her until he stood right next to her.<em>

_Seeing her tears Tommy became frightened. "What's happened? Tell me, Baby."_

_With the last word Barbara sobbed heavily and buried her face into his chest. After a while of being soothed by Tommy she finally could manage to tell him what troubled her._

_"We're having a baby." she choked, her facial expression showing a broad and anxious grin under tears.  
><em>

_Tommy had not really understood and kept on swaying with Barbara in his arms. __"Yes, we will. After our marriage. I thought we had agreed on-" _

_"No!" Now he faltered when Barbara fiercely interrupted him. "I'm already pregnant!" she desperately whispered._

_He was a bit speechless. This was unexpected. Suddenly his mind was as turmoiled as hers was.__ "But... you... umm... how-"  
><em>

_"Oh, gods, Tommy, do I need to explain _that_?!" Barbara mumbled into his chest.  
><em>

_Tommy chuckled. Happiness finally prevailed. "How long?!" He whispered and kissed the top of her head.  
><em>

_"Seven weeks."_

_"And you both are healthy?" He kept her at arm's length to watch her and a big happy smile spread across his face.  
><em>

_Barbara simply nodded, all fear gone now that she had shared her secret, and then finally Tommy's pure joy filled the room when he whirled her around. "We're having a baby!" he jubilated.  
><em>

* * *

><p><em>Two weeks later they sat at the desk in his study again and were deep in planning for the wedding when Barbara eventually stopped moving and looked at Tommy with a serious expression.<br>_

_"I'd be gone seven months!"_

_"Huh?"_

_"I'll be a lorry until then, Tommy. In September I'll be a wobbly and very pregnant heavy duty truck. We have to wait some more months and marry as a family or we'll have to antedate it."_

_Tommy stared at her. Marry as a family was no option. A little blue-blooded conservative in his head insisted that his child would have to come to this world as an Asherton by both parents. That would only mean they had to marry earlier.  
><em>

_"Gretna!" he suddenly blurted out. "We'll marry at the blacksmith's shop. To hell with a big damn wedding."  
><em>

_"You're daft!" Barbara laughed his suggestion away._

_"No, I mean it." Tommy looked deeply serious. "I ask you a question. Don't think about it, just answer. Who do you want to have as witness?"_

_"Winston, Sam and Cate. But what-"_

_"Call them. They shall pack a few things for an overnight stay in Scotland."_

_"Tommy, are you crazy? Besides one needs to register 15 days prior to-"_

_Meanwhile Tommy had stood up and now kissed her. "I'm crazy for _you_, Cinderella. Believe me, I had us registered two days after you had said yes and in those modern times of EDP we now can marry whenever we want within one year. We just-" _

_"I have no wedding dress!" Barbara pointed out.  
><em>

_"I'd marry you in sweatpants, Baby," Tommy grinned. "but I happen to know of a very nice dark green linen dress with long sleeves, a sexy cleavage and a Cornish Tartan scarf. And I know it absolutely fits your figure because I saw you wearing it on that opening of the Nanrunnel Heritage Centre." It had been her first official appearance at his side. "A simple dress for a simple ceremony."  
><em>

_Barbara just watched him in sheer disbelief. "You're crazy!" she whispered again. Tommy merrily laughed and kissed her.  
><em>

_"Call them, pack a few things - and that dress! - and I'll call Deborah and Simon and arrange the flights. Tomorrow evening we'll greet as a married couple."_

_The next hours passed by in a rushing blur. Tommy also had phoned his mother and sister since Barbara had insisted on having them there too. His brother Peter was abroad and sadly would not be able to come. The next morning all nine met in Gretna at the blacksmith's shop. Barbara was in that forementioned dress and Tommy had put on a simple suit with light grey trousers, a dark frock-coat and a white shirt. Moments before they stepped into the smithy Barbara adjusted his dark green linen tie, a habit she loved to exercise and he loved to be blessed with. It was a reassuring gesture for both that would still be practiced years later and Tommy always busied himself with the lapels of her jacket or a loose strand of hair or - like this time - with adjusting her scarf. It always finals with a short kiss.  
><em>

_Daze was constantly crying of joy and Judith berated her brother to be a stubborn, no, an angry young man who eventually should grow adult. In fact she was happy for him too. After the short and simple ceremony with their vows said off the cuff, short but sweet and honest, and the exchange of the simple gold hand-forged wedding rings they went into the local pub. Even the blacksmith closed his wedding shop for one hour because he needed a pint and wanted to see the 'yung English peer and his luvly little lass' celebrating. Tommy had been the first English noble man marrying there for the last whatsoever years._

* * *

><p><em>In the pub at their, well, let's call it <em>reception_ Barbara had rejected the glass of champagne Judith had offered her which made her sister-in-law raise her eyebrows with a suspicion forming in the back of her head. Sam, blind as only a man could be in that matter, just pushed one into her hand._

_At their table Tommy got up and clinked at his glass for attention._

_"Dear family, dear friends. I'm glad you're here. It was quite a spont-"_

_Barbara got up and interrupted him with a shy smile. "Let me?" she whispered and liquefied him with puppy eyes. She held up her glass of champagne of which she of course had not even taken a nip, toasted without words, put it down again still untouched and then raised her glass of water. Blushing despite her braveness she held her first speech as Lady Asherton.  
><em>

_ "Dear friends and dear - now! - family. _We_" glaring at Tommy who blushed a little she emphasised that word "are _all _glad that you're here with us. You may wonder why we suddenly became insane. I reassure you - we're _not_. I simply had not wanted to marry as round as a balloon, so we needed to hurry things a bit. But I'm entirely glad we did it this way." Involuntarily she put a hand on her belly. Now it even dawned on Winston and Sam. ___Barbara was glowing from her happy insides now. _"Let me say it again - it's a pleasure __that you are here with us three. Just please excuse that I toast only with water."_

_Daze was a happily crying mess, Judith almost too, Winston and Sam already had ordered a whisky, Deborah constantly grinned, Simon, equally grinning, gave Tommy a big brotherly slap on the back and Cate repeated the words 'unbelievable, that's unbelievable' after she had jumped at Barbara but then let the newly weds and soon-to-be parents kiss each other._

_Oblivious of their audience Lord and Lady Asherton shamelessly shared a deep and very tender kiss._

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p>After their marriage it had not been long until her new DI - obviously at the request of Tommy - had ordered her to stay at the office and had repeatedly advised her that Barbara should stay at home now that she was pregnant. A few arguments between the Earl and his Countess had followed until Tommy finally had cried and confessed that he simply was afraid of losing a baby again so Barbara had given in and soon had left the active forces forever. Needless to say that she constantly was up to date with Tommy's cases and they still worked some things out together. They secretly enjoyed their ongoing bickering about strategies and suspects, his 'blindness' or her 'prejudices'.<p>

But from her retirement on she mostly only busied herself with doing the management and giving some courses in a new founded society helping young Constables - still some kind of a police work but without bodies and bad boys involved, and alongside she cared about their two sons Anthony and Simon which is an exhausting task on its own. They were sweet little men at the age of four and three years now and Barbara was glad that Tommy only once or twice had insisted on dinner jackets for the two whirlwinds.

Seeing them now running around outside in the snow and sun with Daze and the dogs Barbara thought back in time, back to a foggy drizzling evening in the middle of November, seven months after their wedding, when she gave birth to a bouncing baby boy.

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><em>"Ouch!" Barbara cried. "Oh, bloody hell, <em>such_ a fuckin' pain."_

_Tommy appeared in the kitchen in an instant, anxiously eying his pregnant wife standing at the worktop and holding her round belly. "Off we go?"_

_Another painful ripple went through Barbara's body and her water broke. "Damn!" she winced. "What a sodding pang!" She emphasised every single word.  
><em>

_Tommy brought her to his car where her bag had been deposited for a week now. He thought that in the next hours he probably would hear more curses than ever before in his whole life. He was right._

_Barbara cursed when he drove her like mad through the drizzle to the chosen maternity clinic, she cursed when she was put into one of those awful patient gowns, she cursed when Tommy had been away to the Gents for six minutes instead of five and she had cursed when she had realised that she was hungry because she had not yet eaten dinner. Not to mention her curses when it came to the actual birth._

_But it all went well, amazingly quick and without any complications at all._

_When Barbara finally let go of Tommy's smashed hand and laid back onto the pillow the doctor was giving the boy a small smack and Anthony's first cry filled the room._

* * *

><p><em>About an hour later, Barbara was just waking from a much deserved little nap, she turned her head into the direction of a soothing hum. Tommy sat on a chair next to her bed where the little boy was sleeping peacefully with his little fingers tightly clamped around his father's index finger.<em>

_Tommy looked up and smiled at his wife. "Our little prince has ten fingers and ten toes, two alert ears, two blue eyes, a loud mouth and a sweet little nose." he whispered._

_"Sure he has." Barbara nodded and wiped away the stray tear from Tommy's face. She was still a bit exhausted._

_"Anthony George Thomas, my little Lord Lynley." Tommy gently whispered with dreamy and proud eyes on his son._

_"Don't you dare spoil him into a poncy Lordship like yourself, Tommy. He's a Havers!" Barbara grinned and pulled him down into a kiss._

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p>Sometimes she thought that there in fact was <em>too<em> _much_ of a spiky Havers in her first boy. His emerald eyes were able to wrest nearly everything from his father and as young as he was he already was very stubborn and bold. _Well, that's Asherton too..._ Simon seemed to be a bit more silent and introverted as long as his big brother was not challenging him to whatever trouble they could make.

_And they had not yet hit school age..._ Barbara sighed. She dearly hoped that the little accident that was growing inside her womb really would be a girl this time. The sonograms were not quite clear enough until now but the father was very sure. Five months ago she and Tommy had celebrated their special _Roman Anniversary_ and had gotten carried away a bit. Barbara chuckled at the tender memories of that night and when she had found out that she had thoroughly miscalculated her cycle. It had been a sweet moment when she had told Tommy about her third pregnancy.

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><em>The Asherton boys were with Deborah and Simon. Their second child Michael was of the same age like Anthony and from time to time they visited each other to give their parents a little time alone for each other. Like on that special day in the middle of August when Barbara and Tommy wanted to celebrate the fifth anniversary of their first kiss.<br>_

_First they had spent the sunny afternoon seperated. Each was having some quality time alone, going to the spa or just sitting in the cafe, reading, watching people - texting sweet innuendos with the other._

_Barbara came back home at around seven. At eight o'clock sharp the door bell rang and seconds thereafter a slightly amused Denton announced her husband. "The Earl of Asherton wishes a word, m'lady."_

_Barbara had to laugh out loud. "Yah, let him in, Denton. And you may call it a day. Thank you."_

_Denton bowed and vanished. Barbara stood and greeted Tommy with a kiss._

_"Missed you, Baby." he whispered. Behind his back he held a paper bag and Barbara tried to peep inside. "You're nosy, Barbara!"  
><em>

_"Is it a present for me?"_

_"No, it's the Queen's crown jewels." Tommy kissed her tenderly. __"Happy anniversary, Cinderella." _

_Then he told her where he was during the day and that he had come across a small antiques shop where that thing stood in the window. Meanwhile Barbara had ripped the wrapping off and squealed in delight. Tommy had brought her an old mug, showing the crest of the London Knights, the former ice hockey team Barbara had fancied and still cherished a nostalgic infatuation. It would perfectly fit into the range of multiple different sized and coloured mugs they got used to use at breakfast. A habit Barbara had implemented._

* * *

><p><em>The door bell rang again and the delivery service boy brought a variety of rice, vegetables, meat nuggets and curries. After dinner Barbara and Tommy snuggled into the cushions and kissed and caressed each other softly until both felt a pleasurable passion rising.<em>

_"Shouldn't we change the location?" she lazily whispered onto his lips. She was content with the place where she was now. So was Tommy.  
><em>

_"Who cares? We're alone, aren't we?" he answered with his hands already undoing the buttons of her blouse. "Are we safe or do we have to contracept?"_

_Some time ago Barbara had had to stop using hormonal contraception for health reasons. She quickly thought about it and calculated her cycle. Her answer to his question was a swift move that brought her delicately sitting on his lap._

_They spent the entire night there on the sofa._

* * *

><p><em>Six weeks later she wondered that she should have had her period already. She had just made a tea after an exhausting day full of work, a constant slight nausea, two never-tiring sons, an annoying furniture delivery service that should have delivered a bookshelf (but had not) and with Tommy away at another bloody evening meeting. Realising once more that she had accustomed herself to the butler quite easily Barbara told Denton that she needed a little walk in fresh air, then she left the house in the direction of the nearest pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test.<em>

_It affirmed the obvious._

_Tommy came home at about ten o'clock. He found his wife sleeping on the sofa in front of the blaring telly, the remote control still in her hand, a cup of tea on the table in front of her. Cautiously avoiding to wake her up he slipped next to her under the blanket and tried to reach the control. This woke her at last.  
><em>

_"Tommy..." she drowsily mumbled cupping his cheek._

_"Hello, Sleeping Beauty!" he whispered kissing her wrist._

_"How was your day?"_

_Tommy told her of the uninteresting events of the day until he finally saw her yawning. "Sorry, it was boring. What about yours?"_

_He sipped at her cold tea and grimaced. _Too much sugar like usual..._  
><em>

_"Oh..." she smiled. "The winter fest is fully organised, that bloody bookshelf still is not here - you wouldn't believe what they said this time..." Barbara rolled her eyes. "...your relentless sons finally had done me the honour to stay in bed and hopefully still sleep and I've found out that we're having another baby. Nothing unusual so far..." She hid an amused smile.  
><em>

_"I think about cancelling the contract with this incapable deliv-" he paused. His eyes were more than quizzical when he turned his head to his wife. Something sunk in. "We're having...?!"_

_Barbara was glowing inside and happily beamed at Tommy. She nodded. "...another baby. Yes."_

_"Oh, Barbara, this is ... It's wonderful! Oh my, I love you!" He gently brushed her lips and placed a protective hand on her belly. "How come?__ Are you sure?"_

_"As sure as a woman can be, Darling."_

_"But - when? __I thought we were ___constantly _preventing this!? Not that I would complain..."_

_Barbara could tell him the exact date when they had not used a condom. "One shot, one hit." she grinned and stroked the beloved curl from his forehead.  
><em>

_"Well..." Tommy chuckled. A boyishly grin decorated his happy face while he raked a hand through his hair, obviously very pleased with the result of his marksmanship. Then he pulled his wife close and nuzzled behind her ear, whispering that it had not at all been one single shot that night._

_This made Barbara blush and giggle. She playfully slapped his arm and already felt herself again caressed into a world of fluff._

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

* * *

><p><em>Our daughter will be a little May child.<em> Those had been the exact words from her husband who also hoped for a girl. Barbara sighed happily into the winter wonderland outside.

Right at the moment the father of her children was far away in Edinburgh for the second day. Tommy had taken over as Super Intendent about a year ago and finally and much to Barbara's relief was out of the line of fire - and out of the line of those awful on-call duties. Now he had other tasks and responsibilities. Momentarily he was attending a two week long convention, and so Barbara had gone to Cornwall, spending that time at Howenstow as long as the kindergarten was closed for winter holidays.

* * *

><p>When she thought of Edinburgh an internet site came to her mind which she had not visited for a very long time now and - happy that she had some spare time for herself without the society's duties, without Tommy at her side and with the boys being entertained by their gran - she made herself comfortable on the sofa next to the fireplace with the lap top on her knees and a pot of sweet tea on the table in front of her. She snuggled deep into the cushions, wrapped the rug around her and with her feet on the sofa she opened the browser.<p>

The Rese and Liam community was still alive and writing.

She clicked a few pages back and found the last entry of her former favourite writer. In this story, it was called _Get Together, For Heaven's Sake_ and she could remember its erotic chapters very well, the writer had posted a last chapter some years ago which she never had read. The previous chapters all had a special meaning to her. Snickering like a schoolgirl that did something forbidden she clicked on it and started to read the final entry.

* * *

><p><strong>(X+)<strong>

* * *

><p><em>DS Gibson and DI MacKenzie sat on the sofa next to the fireplace in his study. Their work laid on the coffee table next to empty pizza boxes. Both leant back into the cushions, tired and sated.<em>

_During dinner Therese had randomly shuffled through the papers and Liam had texted with his brother. He had told her because something deep inside him had whispered that she deserves to know that it is no other woman._

_He turned on TV, switching to the Inspector Mysteries in which Nathaniel Ranger, an unbelievably rich inspector, and Sharon Young, his female working class sidekick, were solving cases in Yorkshire._

_"I like that show." Therese said. _They must have peeped into our lifes and transformed it onto screen!

_The protagonists on-screen accidentally rubbed their shoulders over a body, both glancing at the other._

_Liam rolled his eyes. "They're always close to being closer."_

_"Mmh." Therese answered._ Like us. Never taking the last step...

_Involuntarily she sighed. With a raised eyebrow her DI leant over and teased "Are we a little romantic, hm?"_

_"Tush! They have gone through so many years together, one could do that without being romantic." She blushed. _Like _you _do.

Like _we _do. _he thought._ And I would like to get romantically involved with you.

_"Well." he said. "As detectives they shouldn't get romantically involved."_

_"It's not forbidden, it just won't be well-received. " She blushed a little more._

His head shot up but Therese kept her eyes on the screen. _Is she trying to say...?_

* * *

><p><em>Returning his eyes onto the TV Liam saw another long look between Sharon and Nat, how they addressed each other. <em>Rese still calls me Sir. _"This is unbelievable! All those looks and accidental touches and still _nothing_?"_

You really do ask _that_, Sir?! _"And all the tension between them..." Therese added._

_"I think, this never would work." Liam sighed._

_Her heart fell. _There. Forget it, Rese. _Her heart jumped with his next words._

_"I actually do believe that in reality they would have ... err ... resolved their ... umm ... private case."_

_The two fictional detectives stood on a draughty hill in the Dales. Nat put his coat around her shoulders and Sharon looked as if she was going to kiss him._

_"How unrealistic." Therese croaked._

_"I think _you _would have kicked me when I would have offered my coat." Liam grinned nudging her shoulder with his. Therese recognised that he had slid closer._

_"_I _would have been appropriately dressed."_

_Their hands suddenly met on the remote control that laid between them. "Sorry." both said simultaneously. His left hand gripped her right hand with the control. He only let it go when he had taken the remote with his other hand. Her heart worked on overdrive._

* * *

><p><em>On screen visible clouds of breath pictured how Nat whispered into her ear.<em>

_"Highly unrealistic again. Being addressed that way would make her unable to concentrate on anything." Therese murmured. _Like last month when you simply _breathed _into my neck standing so close behind me I had been able to feel your warm chest that touched my back when you inhaled. That day when you berated me to be unfocussed...

_"And how she accidentally falls against him." Liam looked at Therese. _Like _you _did last month when you distracted me from the suspect with your back leaning into _my_ chest.

_Therese held his gaze. "She did it on purpose."_

_Liam swallowed. "I can't understand their solving rate. They distract each other the entire time."_

_"Right." she nodded. "And they constantly argue."_

_"Well, _we _also argue constantly and look at _our _solving rate!" Liam winked and Therese playfully slapped his chest with the back of her hand. He suppressed the urge to run his fingers down her spine as she was leaning forward now, another little blush creeping down her neck._

_After a short period of silent watching Therese remarked that they probably go for a pint after that case and that _he _is going to pay. "Like always. Mister Rich..."_

_"Maybe he only tries to be gallant?"_

_"... showing off his money."_

_"That's not true, Therese." They shared a long and pensive look._

Is he referring to himself?

_"Maybe he just thinks that _money _doesn't matter?" _And I give a damn to it._  
><em>

_Therese averted her eyes and leant back thus again resting a little nearer to Liam._

That wasn't accidentally. _he hoped and put his arm around her shoulder. _Neither was this.

* * *

><p><em>As the show went on Therese eventually fell asleep with her head on his shoulder. Soon she snuggled into his chest. Liam had muted the sound and was slowly drifting into sleep himself when a little snore woke her with a start and she looked up.<em>

_"Oh, sorry, Sir, I-"_

_She could not move away because he held her tight. He interrupted her with his lips on hers._

_"That's very real." he whispered and gave her another kiss._

_"It's a dream, Sir. We-"_

_"Be quiet, Therese. Don't wake us up."_

_They shared another kiss that turned intense._

_Therese could not recall how they ended up on the thick carpet and she could not care less. Somehow they had gotten rid of their clothes and had sunken down there to make love._

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><p><em>They had piled their garments until they had been naked. They had explored every dip and every curve. Every muscle and every nerve had been touched by cautious yet curious fingers. Lips had kissed skin. Teeth had nibbled buds, tongues had left wet traces. They had teased and caressed each other for hours until they united. An eternity of caresses later their thrusts turned slightly faster like their panting did. She arched into him, he thuddered against her, they completed their connection with a shared climax. They finally moaned each other's names in pleasure.<em>

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><p><em>Deeply satisfied and very content she closed her eyes to stay in that dream when Liam covered them with a warm rug. He had no intention to leave that cuddly place next to the now dying fire, next to the woman he loved and who seemed to return his love with an intensity Liam never would have dared to dream of.<em>

_"The Edinburgh Mysteries aren't so absurd at all, are they." Liam whispered when he laid down next to her._

_He placed one arm around her waist and held her close. He intended to never ever let Therese go._

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><p><strong>(+X)<strong>

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><p>Closing the laptop and leaning back with a smile Barbara sipped at her tea. She thought that it <em>indeed<em> was not at all unlikely that something like this could happen in reality. She took her mobile and dialled a number.

"Lynley." His voice sounded busy and he definitely had not checked the caller ID. A habit he had learned from Barbara. She silently laughed.

"Havers." she answered as serious as she could.

"Hi Cinderella!" the baritone on the other end greeted her.

"Hello, Sir." She had used it as a defence against her feelings for Tommy once, nowadays it's just a sweetly teasing endearment. Barbara smiled and closed her eyes. There was a short pause in which she imagined his dark brown eyes behind those sexy reading glasses and the slightly greying hair she still loved to ruffle. She listened to his even breathing and missed him all the more.

"Something wrong, Darling?" Tommy tenderly asked.

"No, no." Barbara answered with a sigh. "I just needed to tell you that I love you."

"I love you too." Tommy's smile was audible. "How are the boys?"

"Chasing your mother and Fluffy in the garden. It had snowed tonight."

Tommy moaned in annoyance. "Crumbs! It's a Newfoundland! Fluffy's going to be about 32 inches high. I still don't like how they named that dog. He's going to be a big dark hairy-"

Barbara seemed to not have listened. "Tommy?"

"Hm?"

"We'll name our daughter Therese."

She could hear his grin. "Yah, we will."

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><p><strong>.<strong>

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><p><strong>. FIN .<strong>

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><p><strong>.<strong>

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><p><strong>Thanks for reading. Please leave a comment. Type your review for this chapter here...<br>**


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